art by Ileana Hunter. Design by Ash Collins
Charlotte Holmes, a brilliant polymath, and her companion Dr Watan, an Indian doctor, investigate a new courtesan who may be a Maharaja's illegitimate daughter and discover the terrible secret of the Graveyard of Girls.
Meanwhile Watan decides to relocate to Bombay after his father's deathbed confession, about the Bibighar massacre, fuels his anti-British feelings.
Branwell, Charlotte’s younger brother, decides to settle down with his current fiancée Rebecca but the proposal encounters unexpected obstacles when she insists Durga the Dacoit must be married off first.
Branwell tries to meet the conditions attached to his proposal and, whilst hunting Durga's sister Madhubala, he stumbles upon a plot to assassinate the new King.
Watan unwittingly falls prey to a nefarious scheme by the Nationalists to entrap him and his circumstances start to spiral out of control as his enemies close in on him.
All our characters gather for the final showdown at the Delhi Durbar as the Nationalists make their move to seize control of India from the British authorities.
Old adversaries make an unwelcome return, as the personal clashes with the political, loyalties are tested and friendships shattered in the conclusion of the Calcutta Quartet .
Author's Notes - Spoiler Warning
The fourth book in the Charlotte Holmes series picks up immediately after the events of the third book, A Berth to Bombay, and is the conclusion to the Calcutta Quartet arc.
The book again uses two narrators, Watan and Branwell, in their own imitable style, but also switches into first person narratove for Watan's father and the Maharajah as they reveal their stories.
I originally planned five books in this arc, The Whore of Lahore (book 4) and A Durbar in Delhi (book 5), but as I plotted the Lahore book I realised it lacked a proper motive for the mystery. In addition after writing four books back to back I was starting to burn out, so I decided to solve both problems by merging the books into a single book The Whore of Lahore.
The key themes in this book were Watan's increasing hatred of British rule and the idea that characters were deluding themselves, in particular with Watan and Branwell. I used historical incidents from the British and incorporated my charcaters into them, unfortunately the Bibighar massacre, and what ensured afterwards, is all true as is the humiliation of the crawling lane.
This book is very much a conclusion of many of the narrative threads started in the previous books and offers a natural pause in this series.
Enjoy!
