The Burning Grounds

Mukherjee’s talent for elevating genre tropes suffuses the stellar fifth installment of his 1920s-set Wyndham and Banerjee mystery series (after The Shadows of Men). It’s been three years since British detective Sam Wyndham helped his onetime partner, Indian investigator Surendranath Banerjee, flee India after being falsely accused of attempted murder. The men have since fallen out of touch, owing in part to the painful dissolutions of their respective romantic relationships. They reunite, however, when wealthy British philanthropist J.P. Millick is found with his windpipe slit in an area of Calcutta used to build funeral pyres. Though Wyndham strained relationships with his colleagues on the Imperial Police Force after he helped Banerjee flee prosecution, military intelligence chief Dawson puts him in charge of investigating Millick’s death and lures Banerjee back into the fold with a promise to track down his missing cousin, Dolly, if he cooperates. Mukherjee depicts the former partners’ uneasy reunion with tenderness while peppering the core whodunit plot with a string of ingenious red herrings. It’s another high-water mark for a series full of them. (Nov.)