If you are willing to pervert the course of justice…
Bewertet mit 5 Sternen
Imagine you were an author trying to both tell a decent crime story (the murder of Alexander MacAuley, the guy to ‘fix‘ issues for both the Lieutenant Govenor of Bengal as much as for the rich industrial Buchan) as well as convey the spirit of 1919 Calcutta, with its colonial British system of suppressing local rights while feeling ever so superior, all in the presence of recent activities of a certain Mr Ghandi and others.
You might decide to write the story from the point of view of the Indians – probably without the average British white reader identifying and without the average Indian reader (British passport or not) reading anything he had not known before.
No, British author Abir Mukherjee (whose parents had immigrated from India) knows better. His first person narrator is Captain Sam Wyndham, who, desillusioned from the trenches in France, embarks from Britain to a new carreer in Calcutta to find a high-profile murder to start with. A British official is found stabbed in ‘Black Town‘, behind a brothel with a note in his mouth hinting at political uproar from the local population, the ‘natives‘, this is in itself an highly promising perspective to start a novel.
The author adds some flavour with a British sub-ordinate who rather wanted Wyndham‘s job and a local officer who will not even be admitted to some places in his own country. 'NO DOGS OR INDIANS BEYOND THIS POINT.' p 87
The tone of the story reminds me of that of Bogart’s voice from the off in "The Maltese Falcon“ – matter of fact, deadpan, laconical „I had some sympathy with him, and not just because of the temperature, which was around a hundred and ten [> 40° C] in the shade. Or at least, it would have been, had there been any.“ p 76 You really start to love buddy cops Wyndham and Banerjee, with Wyndham being the one whose tongue is mostly more loose than is the Indian‘s: p 38 Banerjee: „One might say that the Lieutenant Governor has certain, broad discretionary powers that he is free to exercise in furtherance of the good governance of His Majesty’s colonial territorities of the Bengal Presidency.“
Wyndham "You mean he can do whatever the hell he likes?“ Yes, as a reader, you really understand the situation.
No small praise for this must-read crime story: you will get historical insight, British AND Indian, have a decent enough mystery with a fair share of pondering about conspiracy and its local deal of uproar as well as spy game, all of it delivered with this fine thread of humerous voice bordering irony. I loved it but think some might think the progress a bit slow paced (try an excerpt). You might wish to look up a very few matters mentioned in the text which a British or Indian reader might be more familiar with (such as the Rowlatt Act, a smaller Portion of Ghandi's activities, and the Black Hole of Calcutta - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowlatt_Act;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi#Champaran_and_Kheda;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hole_of_Calcutta). But you do not have to have even seen the movie 2Ghandi“ to be able to understand leave alone enjoy the book.
I will go and get my next book from the author, what else can one do? Please, join me.
German title: Ein angesehener Mann.