The burning grounds by Abir Mukherjee

When a wealthy man, J P Mullick, is found murdered in the Burning Ghats of Calcutta, Captain Sam Wyndham finds that a pretty face can influence him still, especially the charms of a Hollywood star, now surprisingly in India to make a film. When Sam finds that the film’s backer is the murdered man, things begin to happen. The more he delves, the more he uncovers the truth about this man, not the philanthropist people admired but a ruthless user of women. Sam is assigned to investigate the murder, despite being on the outer within the police force, and he is joined by his former sergeant, Surendranath Banerjee, recently returned from a three year stint in Europe. Suren has grudgingly asked Sam for help in finding his missing cousin, a photographer who has set up her own business specialising in photographing women. In return Sam asks for his help with his case, and an uneasy partnership is undertaken. Fascinatingly the two crimes come together, Suren’s cousin being blackmailed by Mullick, and when his deputy is also killed, the facts don’t seem to point in any one direction.

Sam knows he has been given this case because the victim is Indian, and in 1920’s Calcutta, racism is not unsurpising.

This is an amazing read, the characters of Wyndham and Bannerjee are filled out, their relationships with women given more attention. Sam is still smarting after his break-up with Miss Grant and Suren has left behind a broken heart in Paris, the reason he was summonsed home by his father.

Prejudice can be found on every page, with Suren assuming the white woman in the mayor’s house is a secretary, not his wife, or the film star keeping a secret which could ruin her, the deference given to the English administration officers, and the classes in the railway carriage, all woven into the fabric of the book.

The sixth in the series, 1920’s India is brought into every readers’ imaginations, as Sam and Suren navigate the back streets of Calcutta and are cautiously non committal about their own relationships, both with women and with each other. A captivating audiobook.

Themes: Murder, Crime, India, Blackmail, Racism.

Fran Knight