Season of the Monsoon [Hardcover]

Paul Mann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 1993

A corpse has been discovered in a lake in Film City, the Hollywood of India, where film stars always guarantee fresh material for scandal. The victim has been so badly mutiliated that it is impossible to identify the body as male or female, let alone give it a name. An outsider in his own land, with a British father and a feminist mother, George Sansi, who may be the only honest policeman in Bombay, is given the case. As he painstakingly follows up every clue, a shocking portrait of evil emerges. And Sansi is pulled into a political imbroglio from which his career may never recover . . . if he lives so long.


From the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This first-rate crime novel employs the classic elements of the noir thriller: an incorruptible loner cop; an ambitious reporter; gangland organizations; grotesque minor characters; an urban landscape ranging from the fashionable to the seedy, contrasted with the make-believe world of a film studio; a shadowy sexual underworld; an unidentified corpse; and a maniacal killer. But the setting isn't Los Angeles. In a nice twist, Mann ( The Traitor's Contract ) places the action in Bombay, India, where its hero, half-Indian, half-English Inspector George Sansi, is the definitive outsider. The case involves a multilated corpse found floating in a lake. Sansi has to tread carefully so as not to step on his superior's toes, and he must maneuver around the politicians who have an interest in quashing the investigation, which ultimately takes on international proportions. As if that weren't enough, he also finds himself brokering a deal between Bombay's two most powerful crime bosses to prevent open warfare. Although Mann's lush, existentially anguished writing at times resembles Raymond Chandler's, Sansi is better educated than Marlowe, less introspective and less inclined to womanizing, one-liners and violence. While the story, like its hero, is not quite as nihilistic as is usual in the genre, it nevertheless sticks to the noir tradition with a harrowing and memorable climax. Ad/promo; BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Murder in Bombay--in an enjoyable if strained entry in the serial-killer/travelogue subgenre pioneered by Martin Smith in Gorky Park and highlighted by William Bayer's Jerusalem-set Pattern Crimes and Joseph Koenig's Tehran-based Brides of Blood. ``Anything--absolutely anything--can happen in India,'' says hero-cop George Sansi, and as presented by Mann (The Traitor's Contract, 1990), anything--and nearly everything--does, beginning with the discovery at Film City, India's Hollywood, of a horribly savaged body. Sansi--an appealingly saturnine character who's perhaps the only blue-eyed Indian walking the subcontinent (courtesy of the British general who sired him)--pursues the case with his usual moral diligence, stepping on powerful toes as he links the body to a gay prostitution ring serving film bigwigs. The Special Branch inspector is pulled into a second case as well, trying to stop a war between rival Bombay gangsters, a subplot that points up the novel's major strength and weakness: Mann's crackling depiction of India as a madhouse where the only real law is that of survival (most forcefully displayed during Sansi's visit to Dharavai, Bombay's fetid slum-suburb); and the author's forced striving for eccentrically interesting incidents and characters (as seen in the gangster Paul Kapoor, who talks in 50's slang and worships Elvis). Sansi can't stop Kapoor from slaying his rival, but, after a second mutilated body surfaces, the cop does trace the killings back to a 50-year-old murder spree--and to that long-ago killer's grandson, living in London, where the novel attenuates into a dull tracking of the culprit by Sansi, followed by a Bombay- set finale that seems stapled on. Fast-moving and fascinating for its exotic lore, but you can hear Mann's mechanics clanking away. Still, the engagingly earnest Sansi and his amazing India deserve a sequel. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 339 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; First Edition edition (May 11, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449907686
• ISBN-13: 978-0449907689
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #909,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Mann was born in the northeast of England, the only son of a police constable and a nurse. After a career as an itinerant journalist working in several different countries he settled in smalltown Maine. He is the author of several techno-thrillers, including 'The Britannia Contract,' and the George Sansi murder mystery series set in India, including 'Season Of The Monsoon.' After a 15 year digression he has resumed writing and has two new books on Kindle, 'The Witch's Code,' his first foray into supernatural mystery writing, and 'The Leek Club' a semi-autobiographical novel about growing up in the coalfields of East Northumberland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing and vivid page-turner set in India, July 18, 2002

By 

Douglas A. Greenberg (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Season of the Monsoon (Hardcover)

Set in India, *Season of the Monsoon* is a police mystery filled with vivid imagery and wonderful descriptive language. Mann's ability to draw in his readers and keep them riveted is reminiscent of well-known mystery authors like Michael Connelly, and this is definitely high praise. Where writers like Connelly surpass Mann, however, is in their ability to construct a complex mystery that presents twists and turns that keep coming throughout the novel. Mann's story is intriguing, but ultimately, the resolution of the mystery (i.e., the identity of a serial killer) is (disappointingly) simple. The ending is a bit theatrical, which is also something of a flaw.

Overall, however, this novel is gorgeously written and once started is hard to put down. Maybe "gorgeously" is an inappropriate word here, since some of the book's descriptive vividness relates to horrifying imagery related to corpses and murders. This story is definitely NOT for the squeamish. Having greatly enjoyed *The Season of the Monsoon*, however, I definitely plan to read others in the Sansi mystery series.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent mystery, but some parts not for the faint of heart, July 4, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Season of the Monsoon (Mass Market Paperback)

Extremely well-written mystery introducing George Sansi,
the half-Indian, half-British inspector for a special divi-
sion within the Bombay Police Department. It shows not only
Sansi's frustration at having to deal with the system (and
I should point out that Sansi's "system" makes ours look
like a bunch of yes-men), but also provides a view of India
that is somewhat different from any other fictional account
I've read. A word of caution, however: some sections of
Mann's novel get unnecessarily gory (in description, not in
action; Sansi isn't a violent man), and while in hindsight
these parts are vital to the plot, I do wish that Mann could
have toned them down - I don't often get queasy reading a
book, but I did with this one. Thankfully, descriptions
like that are few and far between, and on the whole, this
is an extremely well-written book.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars wonderful!, March 13, 2001

By 

T. Burgess - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Season of the Monsoon (Mass Market Paperback)

this is a great book and a great series. terrific mystery in an exotic locale. Can't wait for more of Paul Mann's George Sansi novels. Have a cup of Chai and enjoy!