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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Our hero battles evil men, and his own temptation,
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This review is from: Deceivers (Paperback)
This book follows William Savage on an adventure fraught with danger, both physical and moral. Not the most quick-witted British Collector, Savage goes up against a nebulous cult of 19th century highway robbers, closely based on the Indian Thugs of those times.
Into this adventurous melodrama of thieves and murderers, Masters mixes dramatic tests of our hero's character. He even takes us on a Dostoevsky-like adventure into the mind of a man who has experimented with evil power and is slipping over the precipice of no return. The best thing I can say about this book is that I wanted to read it in one sitting.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Now little known but rather good historical novel abot the demise of the "Thuggee" cult in India,
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This review is from: Deceivers (Paperback)
The Deceivers is really quite a good historical adventure novel set in early 19th century colonial India and loosely based on fact. At the time, there was an Indian Cult, Thuggee, whose members (called Thugs) worshipped the goddess Kali. Members of the sect were known to each other through secret phrases and rituals, and would prey on travelers, murdering them by garroting them with a weighted scarf, stealing their possessions, and then secretly burying them, so that they would seem to have vanished off the face of the earth. The cult itself was real, flourished in India for centuries and, as another reviewer mentioned, were responsible for the death of anything up to and beyond one million travelers over the period of their existence (although this is somewhat of a guess). When the British discovered the existence of this cult, they worked rather efficiently to eradicate them, ensuring that now, they are a curious relic of India's past. The novel uses this discovery of the Thugs and their penetration and eradication as the key historical event around which the plot is set.
Set around 1825, the central character is a rather decent (and newly married) British official, Capt., William Savage, working as an District Officer in charge of civil administration for the British East India Company, who tries to understand the people he governs, despite a lack of confidence in his own abilities. He inadvertently comes across members of the cult in action and narrowly escapes death at their hands. Subsequently, he investigates, but his investigation proves futile. In the end, and using his ability to speak the local languages well, Savage decides to penetrate the cult as a "mole", disguised as a native. He does this with the help of a Thug who has become disenchanted with the cult. Savage's purpose is to gather the information needed to wipe out the cult. Leaving his now pregnant wife, Savage is trained by his "defector", calls himself Gopal, and manages to infiltrate the cult successfully. Immersing himself in the culture and activities of the cult, he in effect becomes an Indian and as he immerses himelf further and further, he is in danger of loosing himself to the cult completely. His Thug defector comes to understand that and starts of a series of events that make Savage/Gopal realize the grasp that the cult has exerted upon his mind. As another reviewer has mentioned, there's an interestingly little sub-plot on suttee (the old Indian practice where a widow is burned to death on her husband's funeral pyre). It's a well-written book by a master of his craft built around a now little-known but historically accurate piece of Indian history. The book certainly hits the buttons for history, psychology and action, and it was made into quite a good film starring Pierce Brosnan. (The Deceivers - The Merchant Ivory Collection)
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Adventure Story about the Thugees,
By
This review is from: Deceivers (Paperback)
The Deceivers is a great adventure story set in India in 1825-1826. A historical novel it gives a chilling account of the dangers of road travel at that time. The protagonist, Capt. William Savage, is a colonial officer working for the British East India Company in a remote district. In that district, he is the law and responsible for preserving the peace.
When Savage finds mysterious mass graves in his district he is challenged with how to prosecute a mysterious cult responsible for the deaths--the Thugees--who he was to learn were responsible for one of the great mass murders of history. Across a period of 200 years, the Thugees killed as many as one million travelers on remote Indian roads. The Deceivers is a story of how this vast conspiracy came to the attention of the British colonial powers as they pushed into India. Savage's strength as a colonial officer is that he speaks the languages of the area well, and can pass as a fellow traveler. He goes under-cover, and is initiated into the rites of the Thugees, and their worship of the goddess Kali. In the process Savage finds out much about the nature of India itself, religious ecstasy, morality, and the British colonial enterprise. In doing this, the book explores issues of power, ethno-centrism, and religion in ways that few other books do. There is also a great back-story about the nature of suttee. This back story which is both subtle and probing of the practice in which widows commit suicide on their husband's funeral pyre. In sum, this is a book that deserves to be read and re-read again. It passes as a great story about religion, India, and ethics. But most important it is a great adventure story.
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