The Strangler Vine

Calcutta, 1837. Ensign William Avery is waiting for a regimental posting when the East India Company orders him to accompany Jeremiah Blake, a former officer and political agent who has rejected most of the habits of the British community. Their task is to find Xavier Mountstuart, a celebrated but disgraced writer who disappeared after travelling into central India to investigate Thuggee and the Company campaign against it. The journey takes Blake and Avery from Calcutta towards Jubbulpore through princely courts, military stations, bazaars and roads where official authority is uncertain.

Avery begins as an admirer of both Mountstuart and the imperial mission, but the search forces him to question the evidence used to identify alleged Thugs and the interests served by their suppression. Fictionalised appearances by the traveller Fanny Parkes and the administrator William Henry Sleeman place the adventure within contemporary debates about colonial knowledge. Ambush, captivity and political deception turn the missing-person inquiry into an examination of how intelligence, travel writing and sensational stories could justify East India Company power.