The Strangler Vine

For Lovers Of Sherlock, Shardlake And Ripper Street. A Gripping And Pulse-racing Mystery Thriller With A Great Detective Double Act. 'splendid, Enthralling, An Exotic Mystery That Captivated Me.' Bernard Cornwell Calcutta 1837. Young Officer William Avery Is Tasked By His Employers-the East India Company-with Tracking Down Disgraced Poet And Spy Xavier Mountstuart, Lost In The Jungles Of Central India. Accompanied By The Dissolute And Mysterious Jeremiah Blake, Avery Is Sure The Mission Is Doomed. When Their Search Leads Them Into Kali-worshipping Thug Territory, The Pair Are Soon Fighting For Their Lives, But Impelled To Solve The Horrifying Mystery Behind Their Mission. With Death And Danger On Every Side, Is It Too Late For Them To Save Themselves? Shortlisted For The John Creasey New Blood Dagger For Best Debut Crime Novel Of The Year 2014, And The Hwa Debut Crown For Best Historical Novel 2015, Longlisted For The Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel Of The Year 2015 And The Bailey's Woman's Prize For Fiction 2014 India. 1837. William Avery, a fresh young officer in the East India Company, arrives in Calcutta expecting to be seduced by its ancient traditions. Nine months later he hasn't learnt a word of Hindoostani, is in terrible debt, and longs to return home before the cholera epidemic finishes him off. A few months earlier, so rumour has it, the infamous and disgraced poet Xavier Mountstuart leaves Calcutta in order to track down the last of the remaining Thugs, a sinister secret fraternity notorious for strangling thousands of travellers. But after reaching the kingdom of Jubbulpore, Mountstuart mysteriously disappears. "India, 1837. William Avery is a young soldier with few prospects except rotting away in campaigns in India; Jeremiah Blake is a secret political agent gone native, a genius at languages and disguises, disenchanted with the whole ethos of British rule, but who cannot resist the challenge of an unresolved mystery. What starts as a wild goose chase for this unlikely pair--trying to track down a missing writer who lifts the lid on Calcutta society--becomes very much more sinister as Blake and Avery get sucked into the mysterious Thuggee cult and its even more ominous suppression"--Dust jacket flap.