Skip to main content
The Top Book List
Cover of Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee

Book · Adult

Smoke and Ashes

A Novel

by Abir Mukherjee

352 pages · 2019

Honors

Get the book

We may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. It never affects which books we recommend. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

About the book

Captain Sam Wyndham and his sidekick Surrender-Not Banerjee return in this prize-winning historical crime series set in 1920s Calcutta. India, 1921. Haunted by his memories of World War I, Captain Sam Wyndham is battling a serious addiction to opium that he must keep secret from his superiors in the Calcutta police force. When Sam is summoned to investigate a grisly murder, he is stunned at the sight of the body: he’s seen this before. Last night, in a drug addled haze, he stumbled across a corpse with the same ritualistic injuries. It seems like there’s a deranged killer on the loose. Unfortunately for Sam, the corpse was in an opium den—and revealing his presence there could cost him his career. With the aid of his quick-witted Indian Sergeant, Surrender-Not Banerjee, Sam must try to solve the two murders, all the while keeping his personal demons secret, before somebody else turns up dead.

For parents

No age or grade range recorded.

Grade ranges are editorial guidance. Every reader is different.

More by Abir Mukherjee