It is three years since The Shadows of Men when Suren Banerjee fled Calcutta for Europe. In The Burning Grounds, fifth in the Wyndham & Banerjee series by Abir Mukherjee, Suren returns to the city and to his former colleague Captain Sam Wyndham. Both are facing difficult cases, each needs the other’s help but is reluctant to ask.
A man is found dead in the burning ghats of Calcutta. Wyndham, out of favour at the Imperial Police Force and trusted only with the most menial of cases, is sent to deal with the body. Except the corpse isn’t just anyone. He’s one of the city’s wealthiest businessmen, a patron of the arts, producer of a film being shot in Calcutta at this moment. He is admired wherever he goes. And now his throat has been cut.
Suren, who has returned home to India after his relationship in Paris with a French woman faltered, is drifting without a job, without authority. Then his cousin Dolly, a photographer, goes missing. Suren, desperate to find her, goes cap in hand to Wyndham. The reunion is awkward, both blame the other for the cause of Suren’s flight abroad. Begrudgingly, day by day, they work together, sniping, squabbling, resentful. Both are changed men and Calcutta is changing too. Dolly’s studio has been ransacked, no-one has seen her and Suren is frantic with worry. Meanwhile at a party a million miles away from the burning grounds, Sam meets a glamorous woman. Estelle Morgan is the Australian actress whose face is on the front pages of newspapers. They both enjoy a mild flirtation and Sam begins to wonder if there is a life for him beyond the grief for his dead wife and his more recent regrets at the failure of his on-off relationship with Annie Grant. But when he is charged with investigating the death of JP Mulllick, he must travel to Bishnupore to interview the film crew, he sees Estelle Morgan again. Suren goes too. More people die, none of them Dolly, but when the two cases, oh so different, are linked, Sam and Suren must learn to work together again.
Set against the last decades of the Raj, the success of these books is the laser focus on the relationship of two men who were born thousands of miles distant from each other. Intellectually they are on a level, in religious and cultural terms they are poles apart, but they find common ground in their belief in the triumph of right over wrong, the pursuit of criminality and along the way wrestle with cultural dilemmas, shames, beliefs and behaviours on both Anglo and Indian sides. As the country inches towards independence, the balance of power in the two men’s relationship adjusts too.
Excellent. This is a fine series of historical crime fiction.
Here are my reviews of the first five books in the Wyndham & Banerjee series:-
A RISING MAN #1WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
A NECESSARY EVIL #2WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
SMOKE AND ASHES #3WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
DEATH IN THE EAST #4WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
THE SHADOWS OF MEN #5WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
If you like this, try:-
‘My Name is Yip’ by Paddy Crewe
‘Leeward’ by Katie Daysh #1NIGHTINGALE&COURTNEY
‘The Silver Bone’ by Andrey Kurkov #1KYIVMYSTERIES
And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BURNING GROUNDS by Abir Mukherjee @radiomukhers https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-91l via @SandraDanby


















