Sam Dastor

Meet Vish Puri, managing director of Most Private Investigators Ltd, Delhi. He is cutting a determined swathe through India's swindlers, cheats and murderers. He has a moustache to rival Hercule Poirot and methods that resemble Sherlock Holmes.

Born into poverty, then trapped in the shackles of charity and gratitude, Mr Biswas is an outsider who refuses to conform to the customs of his grander in-laws whose house he lives in. Finally finding a house of his own, he triumphs over the smaller minds who try to repress him.

Kimball O’Hara, the orphaned son of an Irish soldier in India during the Raj, is adopted by his father’s regiment. His recruitment into the British Secret Service takes the reader into the intricacies of the ‘Great Game’ of espionage.

Former government minister Ralph Singh is the perpetual outsider: displaced, disillusioned, and now living in exile, Ralph reflects on his earlier life and the searing effects of colonialism. Born on the colonial island of Isabella, he is one of West India's many 'Mimic Men'.

Chaos, death and unbelievable destruction ensue when the Brighton Express derails just outside the Balcombe Tunnel. Could it simply be a case of driver error? Detective Inspector Colbeck thinks not, but digging deep to discover the intended target of the accident takes time and the killer is preparing to strike again.

Tracing the threats to our future to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean, The Nutmeg's Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism.

The story of the nutmeg becomes a parable revealing the ways human history has always been entangled with earthly materials. Our crisis, Ghosh shows, is ultimately the result of a mechanistic view of the Earth, where nature exists only as a resource for humans to use for our own ends, rather than a force of its own, full of agency and meaning.

Writing against the backdrop of the global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, Ghosh frames these historical stories in a way that connects our shared colonial histories with the deep inequality we see around us today.

When Adela Quested and her elderly friend arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore they feel trapped by its Anglo-Indian community. Under the guidance of Dr. Aziz they start to explore the ‘real’ India but on a visit to the Marabar caves an incident occurs which results in Aziz becoming embroiled in a scandal.