The Things About Thugs

A subversive macabre novel of a young Indian man’s misadventures in Victorian London as the city is racked by a series of murders. In a small Bihari village Captain William T. Meadows finds just the man to further his phrenological research back home: Amir Ali confessed member of the infamous Thugee cult. With tales of a murderous youth redeemed Ali gains passage to England his villainously shaped skull there to be studied. Only Ali knows just how embroidered his story is so when a killer begins depriving London’s underclass of their heads suspicion naturally falls on the “thug.” With help from fellow immigrants led by a shrewd Punjabi woman Ali journeys deep into a hostile city in an attempt to save himself and end the gruesome murders.. Ranging from skull-lined mansions to underground tunnels a ghostly people call home The Thing about Thugs is a feat of imagination to rival Wilkie Collins or Michael Chabon. Short-listed for the 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize this sly Victorian role reversal marks the arrival of a compelling new Indian novelist to North America.