Smoke and Ashes

Calcutta, 1921. Sam Wyndham’s secret dependence on opium becomes dangerous when he stumbles across a mutilated corpse in an opium den and later encounters another body marked by the same injuries. Admitting where he saw the first victim could destroy his career, but the murders will not let him walk away. As Wyndham and Surendranath Banerjee investigate, the case draws them toward military secrets and a city already strained by protest, boycott and the approaching visit of the Prince of Wales.

The third novel is set explicitly against Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement. Chittaranjan Das and Subhas Chandra Bose are among the nationalist organisers challenging British authority in Bengal, while Edward, Prince of Wales—the future Edward VIII—arrives as a symbol of an empire many Indians are being urged to refuse to serve. Banerjee’s position becomes especially difficult as colleagues in the Imperial Police expect loyalty to the Raj while family and friends are drawn toward non-cooperation. Mukherjee binds the murder plot to this real political crisis, making colonial policing, nationalist mobilisation and Wyndham’s private addiction parts of the same tightening pressure.