Dimensions
165 x 243 x 33mm
A sweeping tale of eighteenth-century India at the height of the Raj . . .
Set in Bengal in 1756, this ambitious novel traces British interaction with the Indians in the months leading up to the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta incident, in which approximately 250 white people were imprisoned by Indian merchants in a tiny room, leaving only 30 alive the next day.
We follow the lives of two British leaders of the white community - the Chief Magistrate Holwell and his enemy the governor Drake, both struggling to maintain British reserve in difficult times. Holwell is obsessed with half-Indian Rita, the wife of pushy French trader Demonteguy, and Drake's wife Emily is the object of the engineer James O'Hara's obsession. As tensions build in the European quarter, mixed-race Sati causes commotion in the Indian community when she becomes possessed by the goddess Kali.
Against a vividly created backdrop of dirt, decay and slime from the Hoogly river, the shaky foundations of British power come to light.
