Excerpt from The Strangler Vine by Miranda J. Carter, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'I hate these damned litters, they make me ill,' I grumbled.

'Whereas I love them. I shall say it once more, now I am in the Political Department I shall travel India in a sedan chair and never sit on a horse again.' Frank looked me over. 'Oh, William, for heaven's sake, would you rather be going to Blacktown on an errand for Government House that at the very least will keep you occupied for an afternoon? Or would you rather be dead?'

'You know, Frank,' I said, rubbing my temples hard to dispel the ache, 'there are times when I think I would rather be dead.'

'You should be ashamed to say anything so stupid,' he said, severely. 'You should be careful of what you wish for.'

'I am sorry, Frank, forgive me,' I said, instantly remorseful. 'I am good for nothing in this state.'

I set my jaw against the throb in my temples, and smiled as much as I could manage. The truth was death came with alarming and casual ease in Calcutta. We had seen our fellow cadets taken overnight by the cholera, or a sudden fever, or some horrible unforeseen accident. One had died when a bullock cart loaded with sharpened wooden staves had collided with his horse. September was a bad month for fevers and diseases in Calcutta. The chaplain of Frank's regiment said that though the month was but half over, he had already seen thirty burials.

'Why they are sending me to deliver this thing I do not know.' Frank raised an eyebrow. 'You said you were bored.'

'You!'

'I simply mentioned that my able and presentable friend was at a loose end.'

He thrust a water bottle into my hands. I made a face, but drank. I had assumed I had been chosen to go to Blacktown because I was the least occupied, least sickly junior officer to hand. It had never occurred to me that Frank might have had a hand in it.

'Besides, I wanted to have a look at Blacktown,' he went on, 'and I could not very well volunteer myself. And are you not curious to know who this Jeremiah Blake is?'

'Some tragic, leprous, broken-down old creature gone native, too opium-addled to collect his own pension,' I said heavily.

'Mebbe,' said Frank. 'Ah! The scent of the ghats is pungent today.'

The palanquin drew up to the Hooghly River ghats. These are the large steps that descend to the water and pass as quays in India. The river was like Calcutta itself. From a distance, it seemed picturesque, the gilt-covered barges of the rich natives and the bumboats selling fruit and fish, and the glimpses of the graceful mansions of Garden Reach on the other side. But close to, it was a different story. The ghats were always chaotic, crowded and dirty, and the stink of stale fish lay over them like a fog. Beggars in tiny boats waved their stumps for coins, and the native food-sellers were aggressively accosting or sullenly inscrutable. Worst of all were the half-burnt corpses that floated through the murky water. The Hindoos brought their dead down to the ghats to burn them, but they rarely spent enough on fuel to do more than burn the skin off before tipping them into the water. Once the funeral rituals were performed, no further attention was paid to these hideous objects, as if they no longer existed.

Native men and women washed themselves and even filled pigskin water bottles—the creatures returning to their former animal forms as the water reinflated them.

'You know,' I said, 'I often think that if one wished to commit a murder in Calcutta, a perfect way of disposing of the body would be to partially burn it and tip it into the Hooghly. Everyone would ignore it.'

'What a ghoulish thought, though it would make a splendid story,' said Frank.

Excerpted from The Strangler Vine by Miranda J Carter. Copyright © 2015 by Miranda J Carter. Excerpted by permission of Putnam Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.