A young man of Indian descent trying to make his mark in London’s financial market gets drawn into the horrors of World War I in this novel.
Firoze Hazari finds himself in a bind. He has just completed his studies at Oxford and his parents now want him to return to India to join the family business and marry the “perfect bride” they have found for him. While he’s not ready to settle down, he needs to establish an independent income to remain in London. At first, he finds some success working at the Wilneck Group, a major investment firm. But Firoze suffers from the isolation of a foreigner in a nation that resists fully accepting him, a personal crisis that only intensifies once his company is defrauded. The firm fires him, turning him into its “sacrificial lamb.” Moreover, he frets anxiously about the increasingly inevitable eruption of war. In dire financial straits, Firoze is recruited into The Pannonian, a counterespionage agency, and is eventually thrust into the war as an operative. Chowdhury intelligently captures the volatility of London in advance of the war and the stubborn refusal of some, despite the warning signs, to acknowledge its likelihood. He deftly injects many rich historical details into the story. But the plot as a whole is infused with a didactic quality, as if the author is straining to impart moral edification to readers. This sermonizing earnestness is only exacerbated by the fact that the lesson remains bewilderingly unclear given the murkiness of Chowdhury’s writing. Firoze’s anxiety about the upcoming war is depicted by the author in confusingly muddled terms typical of his uneven prose: “The paradox in his subconscious could not find any way to simply define itself, nor could it be understood completely. A poor tolerance of any rationale to differentiate the racist against his non-British roots, or fascist opinions that comprised of everything he despised, could not be tolerated.”
An intriguing war thriller hampered by a shaky plot.