1895 Hyderabad. On a sultry June evening, outcast Chief Inspector Soobramania finds a woman’s mutilated body in the Musi River. Later that same evening, two more victims are found in a private park. The wounds and the silk cummerbunds coiled around their necks bear an eerie resemblance to Jack the Ripper’s victims. Powerful suspects in the Whitechapel murders are in the city and include the ruler’s royal guests. With an unlikely ally in prickly British rival Inspector Wilberforce, Soob must foil imperial pressure and nail the killer before more women lose their lives. 

The setting and the story are inspired by my childhood memories of the city. I lived in Hyderabad until my teenage years, and each time I entered the fortified old city to go to the bangle bazaar or a palace-museum, it felt like I was stepping into a different century. As someone who was brought up in India, and went to university in the UK and the US and also worked there,  I find the encounter between the sensibilities of the east and the west fascinating. In Blood Caste, I combine the impact of the British in India (from an Indian viewpoint) with that most British of forms—the detective novel.