REVIEW #68 A RISING MAN

#68  REVIEW OF A RISING MAN

Tom Wells

Sometimes all you want is book that: has simple, prosaic sentences: transports you to another world but doesn’t take you out of this one; shows a certain level of research but not so much that you feel you should be able to construct an atom smasher or, at the very least, a ham radio.   A Rising Man is just such a book. Set in Calcutta in 1919, it gives you a flavour of what it must have been like to be a policeman in the British Raj without immersing you in the ugly horrors of poverty, corruption and racism. After all, this is a book where the hero does all the right things, even as he fights a fairly mild morphine addiction (courtesy of His Majesty’s participation in The Great War) and the good guys triumph in the end.  It’s what I call a good read. And sometimes that’s all you want.

***½