A Rising Man (Sam Wyndham) Hardcover – 5 May 2016

I grew up surrounded by historical fiction and action novels. Some of my fondest memories are linked to the time spent with words of Henryk Sienkiewicz or Bernard Cornwell as companions.Abir Mukherjee's A Rising Man instantly caught my attention. The blurb reads:"Captain Sam Wyndham, former Scotland Yard detective, is a new arrival to Calcutta. Desperately seeking a fresh start after his experiences during the Great War, Wyndham has been recruited to head up a new post in the police force. But with barely a moment to acclimatise to his new life or to deal with the ghosts which still haunt him, Wyndham is caught up in a murder investigation that will take him into the dark underbelly of the British Raj.A senior British official has been murdered, and a note left in his mouth warns the British to quit India: or else. With rising political dissent and the stability of the Raj under threat, Wyndham and his two new colleagues–arrogant Inspector Digby, who can barely conceal his contempt for the natives and British-educated, but Indian-born Sargeant Banerjee, one of the few Indians to be recruited into the new CID–embark on an investigation that will take them from the luxurious parlours of wealthy British traders to the seedy opium dens of the city."The main protagonist is a man of his time; suffering from post-WWI trauma and grief from losing wife to Spanish Flu, he self-medicates with alcohol and opium, but above all - tries to find his footing in the new country and reality of 1919 Calcutta.Through his eyes, we meet his co-workers and acquaintances: Inspector Digby - a hard man to like, Sarjeant Banerjee - a man who he will learn to rely on, Mrs Tebbit and the residents of her guesthouse, Sen - a suspected terrorist who embarked on a peaceful journey, and the cream of British society in India.I enjoyed the mystery part of the story, which took me from the slums of Black Town to the mansions of British prominence in Calcutta, and anywhere in-between. From a personal point of view, I enjoyed following Sam through the investigation - he was not shying from asking uncomfortable questions and prying open doors that very prominent Brits would prefer to keep well shut. With invisible forces trying to manipulate the investigation, and the military's secret Section H looking for "easy win", Sam waded through dangerous territories. The case also forced him to choose between pursuing the truth and risking his newly-acquired career and allowing a man (with known terrorist connections and guilty of such crimes) to take the blame for a murder he most likely did not commit.I cannot talk about this novel without addressing the setting.The importance of it comes not from the flowery descriptions, but from the effect it has on the main character:"Another torrid Bengal night. The humidity was suffocating. You could taste it in the air. Perspiration dripped off my body and drenched the bed. I'd open the window in an attempt to encourage some sort of breeze to circulate, but all it did was allow free access to the mosquitoes Mrs Tebbit insisted didn't exist. (...)I sat back on the bed and, not for the first time, questioned what I was doing out here, in this country where the natives despised you and the climate drove you mad and the water could kill you. (...)I felt a great heaviness. India was depressing me, as it appeared to depress pretty much everyone."Mukherjee's Calcutta is almost a character in her own right. It's vibrant and scarred; it's burnt by the sun and desires of her inhabitants; it's old and tired, but also young and hopeful; it's dirty, it's loud, it's crowded, it's fascinating, and it seduced me.If "fiction is the truth inside the lie", as a genre, historical fiction is "the lie within the truth" - it often is inspired by or uses past happenings and historical characters as a background or plot driver. Any fictional events and personage have to be seamlessly blended with the documented facts and cultural mould of the place to be believable and convincing; characters can be a way of distilling notions and events of a particular timeframe. Through Wyndham's eyes, we look at rising tensions between two countries on a backdrop of 1919 surge of self-govern will and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.Sam may not have fully bought into the "Little England" mythos and British superiority. However, he still benefits from the Rowlatt Act and operates within the remits of widely accepted casual racism, the most obvious example being calling Sargeant Surendranath Banerjee by his nickname Surrender-Not (given to him since his name was too difficult to pronounce).There is mistrust between Sam and Surendranath, reflecting the general mood in the clashing societies. As the investigation progresses, Banerjee shows himself as a competent officer, who saves Wyndham on a couple of occasions, and as a man who is willing to throw away his job, because he couldn't support the current state of affairs.Sam's moral pursuits may not make much of a difference, but his determination to do the right thing in the face of obstacles makes him that much compelling. He even prevents young Sarjeant from quitting as his skills may benefit India in the future.Despite the great distance that separates us from the remote past, one of the tasks the historical fiction takes on is to create a medium of intimacy with bygone cultures and peoples. Abir Mukherjee succeeded in just that and opened a window to a time long gone, yet whose echoes and legacies are still loud today.

What a delight. Thrilling! Superb prose, great characters and dialogue, a flawed hero, amazing pacing and rhythm, and a delicious complex mystery of my favourite kind: The pieces are presented as the story develops, and you arrive at the solution along with the detective! Awesome! And it's Mukherjee's first book! What a joy, and a very satisfying historical experience as well. 4.5 stars, WELL DONE!Apparently, Abir Mukherjee became a noir fan after a friend forced him to read Gorky Park. Good choice!And bless his silver-tongue, Joseph Knox recommended "A Rising Man" to me just last week!(Ten Stars: Joseph Knox Sirens and The Smiling Man)As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.This is such a great introduction to the last days of the Raj, wrapped in a murder and other mysteries. Politics abound, but the policeman pushes forward relentlessly. This reminds me of Renko in Gorky Park in many ways. Wonderful.There is a minor romantic interest in the lovely Annie, and some supporting characters to provide clues and red herrings, all perfectly pitched and balanced to provide great entertainment throughout the entire book. No lags, no overwriting, no padding, no silly cartoon plots or characters, and with a satisfying conclusion, this is the Real Deal. I will be starting Book #2 "A Necessary Evil" in a few minutes!There are so many fine quotations in this book, so much care and thought, and almost my favourite kind of gumshoe: the "philosopher-detective". What a delight!Here are a few -It was the architecture of domination and it all seemed faintly absurd. The Palladian buildings with their columns and pediments, the toga-clad statues of Englishmen long deceased, and the Latin inscriptions on everything from palaces to public lavatories. Looking at it all, a stranger could be forgiven for thinking that Calcutta had been colonised by Italians rather than Englishmen.The Raj BhavanNothing, save maybe for war, quite prepares you for Calcutta. Not the horrors recounted by returning India-men in the smoke-filled rooms of Pall Mall, not the writings of journalists and novelists, not even a five-thousand-mile sea voyage with stops in Alexandria and Aden. Calcutta, when it arrives, is on a scale more alien than anything the imagination of an Englishman can conjure up. Clive of India had called it the most wicked place in the Universe, and his was one of the more positive reviews.Sam considers the opium from local Calcutta Chinese...... we’d fought two wars against their [China's] emperors for the right to peddle the damn stuff [opium] in their country. And peddle it we did. So much so that we managed to make addicts out of a quarter of the male population. If you thought about it, that probably made Queen Victoria the greatest drug peddler in history.Upon meeting a beautiful young woman, Sam thinks:How does a man survive three years of bombing, shelling and machine-gun fire and yet still tremble with nerves when asking a woman out for lunch?I'd feel the same way meeting this beauty:Military intelligence had granted the Commissioner’s request .... ‘Any and all assistance’ would be provided to us. That was a nice touch; like someone punching you in the face, then asking what they could do to help stop the bleeding.Digby:... all mouth and no trousers.Reminds me of "All hat and no cattle", and other sayings -all bark and no bite; all bluff and bluster; all booster, no payload; all crown, no filling; all foam, no beer; all ham, no let; all hammer, no nail; all icing, no cake; all lime and salt, no tequila; all mouth and no trousers; all mouth and trousers; all shot, no powder; all sizzle and no steak; all talk; all talk and no action; all wax and no wick; all motion and no meat; all show, no go.Byrne on "Moral Superiority":Now how d’ye suppose one hundred and fifty thousand British keep control of three hundred million Indians?’ ... ‘Moral superiority.’ He let the phrase sink in. ‘For such a small number to rule over so many, the rulers need to project an aura of superiority over the ruled. Not just physical or military superiority mind, but also moral superiority. More importantly, their subjects must in turn believe themselves to be inferior; that they need to be ruled for their own benefit. ... Why else would we build that bloody great monstrosity the Victoria Memorial out of white marble and make it bigger than the Taj Mahal?'The Victoria Memorial, CalcuttaThe Infamous Black Hole of Calcutta was at Fort William.As Sam, Digby and Bannerjee search for the truth ....April 13, 1919, Amritsar. This was Baisakhi Day. That evening, a little after 5 pm, Brigadier General Dyer had ordered his small troop of soldiers to fire indiscriminately and without warning at a crowd of more than 20,000 people — men, women and children — who had gathered at Jallianwala Bagh. The official death toll was 379 but given the size of the gathering, the actual toll could well have been over a thousand.Brigadier General Dyer, "The Butcher of Amritsar"Notes:1.0% "... apparently, Mukherjee became a noir fan after a friend forced him to read Gorky Park. Good choice."4.0% "... already Very Good! This was recommended to me by Joseph Knox, author of the extraordinary Sirens and The Smiling Man "30.0% "... terrific. So nice to find an intelligent, interesting book with fine prose."

A great setting for a book that is unusual in both geography and time. The use of colloquial words that prevailed during this time and the characters that are described in their own settings of both poverty and opulence existing side by side help paint a picture of post WW1 India.