The Deceivers

The novel is set in India during the height of the East India Company's power. Our protagonist is an officer in the EIC, and he learns about the thuggee cult's operation in the region he's responsible for. So he set out to find and crack the cult, accidentally ends up in Kali's service, mayhem ensue......more

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters were totally believable and Masters really paints a vivid picture of India in the early 1800’s. Masters evokes the feel of how India was at that time, we are taken back to an India as it was almost 200 years ago. The plot is unusual and intriguing, some......more

If you can manage a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief (that a white Englishman could pass as an Indian and that an extremely widespread violent underground religion could exist for centuries without being exposed), you'll enjoy this book. Briefly, it's about the alleged cult of early-mid 19th......more

I read Bhowani Junction in the early 1960s, my first introduction to the thronging Indian subcontinent. Later I was to read Forster’s Passage to India, the Raj trilogy of Paul Scott, Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala,The Far Pavilions by MM Kaye, Jim Corbett’s tiger-hunting exploits, and his tho......more

A story so utterly thrilling that I finished it in a matter of days with no intention of doing so. As usual John Masters brings colonial India vividly to life, transporting the reader into a fascinating world where travel is dangerous, and murder and religion go hand in hand. Having previously read......more