Review: A Rising Man

A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm a little late to Abir Mukherjee but I'm glad I got here. 'A Rising Man' is set in 1919 Raj India, a period I know little about but which Mukherjee brings to life - the intense colours, the oppressive heat, the simmering violence; the racism, both institutional and casual, of the last decades of the British Empire.

Sam Wyndham, a policeman two weeks into his career in the colonial force in Calcutta, investigates the murder of a high ranking British official, a man apparently killed by terrorists seeking the end of British rule. But when the secret police seem a little eager to close the case, Sam, along with the pompous, racist Inspector Digby and Sgt. 'Surrender-Not' Banerjee, Indian-born and educated at Cambridge, suspects that there is more to the crime than initially appears. Mukherjee's dialogue is excellent and the characters all have distinct voices. He describes the locations, from dusty back streets to opulent colonial mansions to temples surrounded by lush jungle, with a deft touch. And along the way, he drops phrases worthy of Chandler - a carpet is "thick enough to suffocate a small dog", Wyndham "tried not to stare at her legs, which was difficult because they were fine legs and I appreciate these things" - and takes a few humorous pokes at his native Scotland, a country whose climate "is rather unpleasant for ten months of the year and downright inhospitable for the other two."

I enjoyed 'A Rising Man' thoroughly. It is a satisfying and entertaining detective story but also a commentary on British Colonial attitudes to, and treatment of, 'foreign' subjects; food for thought when those same attitudes and nostalgia for the days of Empire seem to be driving the Brexit movement in England. Second in the series already purchased and high on the TBR list.

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