The Deceivers

Description

In 1825 William Savage is an official in the East India Company, committed to the people of his remote district and British rule in India. During the course of his duties he witnesses a double murder and stumbles upon the society of the thuggee, a secret cult that has flourished in India for 200 years and murdered over a million people. When Savage discovers a mass grave, including the body of a recently killed British officer, his investigation leads him to infiltrate, while disguised, the cult. He learns their secrets but finds himself drawn to the ecstasy of ritual killing. Can his sense of honour prevail, can he destroy the thuggees?

Few other Anglo-Indian writers were so entwined in the history of modern India as John Masters. He was the fifth member of his family to serve with the British Army in India, serving in the Fourth Prince of Wales' Own Gurkha Rifles on the North-West Frontier. During World War II, he fought in the Middle East before joining General Wingate's Chindits in Burma. He rose to the rank of General before retiring from the army in 1948. John Masters published 25 books before his death in 1983.

He organizes and controls the swift-moving, exciting narrative with the unobtrusive brilliance of a first-class military strategist. -- The Observer Simply as gripping exotic tales, his books read splendidly still... but they deserve to be read also as a revelation to the young and a reminder to the old of a vanished world. -- The Tablet The story, which is as exciting as any I have read for a long time... Readable, vivid and spectacular. -- C.P. Snow * Sunday Times *