Our December CC Book Club selection is The Strangler Vine by M.J. Carter. Set in 1830’s colonial India, Carter’s novel tells the story of William Avery, a young lieutenant, and Jeremiah Blake, an agent for the East India Company, who join forces to track down a missing writer who has disappeared into the jungle.
The Strangler Vine was first published in February 2014 and was long listed for the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. (M.J. Carter has since written two sequels, so if you like the book, there’s more Blake & Avery adventures to be found.)
I’m just popping in to say that I thought I’d get an early start on this, and discovered the advantage of reading a book that’s almost four years old: My local library has the hardcover, the paperback, the large print edition, the audio book, and all the electronic formats (kindle, html and adobe epub). So you probably won’t have too much trouble getting your hands on a copy of the book, be it physical or virtual.
I rarely listen to books, but this time I checked out the audio version of The Strangler Vine via Hoopla, and I am really enjoying it. I’m about 1/3 of the way through and I confess I may have developed a small crush on the narrator (Alex Wyndham, who also narrates the sequels). He does great voices. Also, it’s nice to have someone else pronounce all the unusual vocabulary words (see the glossary).
I finished it as well. I may eventually read the next book, but now right now. @mathmom, you’ll have to let us know how you think it compares with #1. Happy Thanksgiving!
It’s December! Welcome to our discussion of The Strangler Vine by M.J. Carter. Often I cut things way too close when I read our books for discussion, finishing at the very last minute. This time, I read the book early and am hoping I have not forgotten the finer points of the novel. I listened to the audiobook (for the most part — occasionally I read) and I thought the voices Alex Wyndham did for Blake and Avery helped draw out the personalities of the characters. (I kept picturing Gerard Butler as Blake.) I liked the book. I thought it was crying out to be filmed – I could see it as a BBC mini-series.
I’m going to pick a question that takes us right to the end (so…spoiler alert!):
Did you think it was a big twist? It would have been a big twist if, let’s say, we found out the Thugs had never existed. But I looked them up before reading the book. I knew they existed, that they were murderers who traveled in groups, befriended strangers and then strangled them. I knew there was a Thuggee Department and that some Thugs turned informant for protection. I knew that (according to Wikipedia), they considered themselves “children of Kali (a Hindu goddess), created from her sweat.” I also learned that “the Thugs had no religious motive to kill and the colonial sources were inaccurate in that respect.” And I knew that there was controversy over whether or not the British government stoked fear about Thugs in order to control the masses. So I’m not sure what, in the end, I was supposed to find so terribly surprising. Did I miss something? Or did I just know too much beforehand, thanks to Wikipedia?
I read the historical note at the back of the book. I knew enough about India to know that they were obviously exaggerating the threat, but I didn’t really anticipate them going so far over the line that they would attack Black and Avery directly.
And since I like to hear an overall impression of the book. Here’s mine. I enjoyed the book for the most part, and since DH roared through the sequels, I am reading the follow-up book so we have something to talk about. (Sequels are set in London not India.) I found the naive narrator, know-it-all share nothing detective annoyingly familiar with less charm that the Sherlock - Watson duo. I had a hard time believing Avery could be so dumb, or Blake so annoying and anyone keep them on. Also, this India just did not come to life the way other books I’ve read have - though most were set in the more recent past. (From the British point of view - Kim, Passage to India, a couple of John Masters books and The Raj Quartet. Written by Indians or Pakistanis - A Suitable Boy and Cracking India.) I felt like the author had done her homework, but it just didn’t feel quite real.
I read the historical note at the end of the book first so knew that the Thug threat was exaggerated. Still, like @Mary13, I don’t necessarily see that as a big twist. Thugs existed and existed enough in the novel to capture Avery and Blake.
The big twist for me is the reveal of Mir Aziz as bad guy. I suspected Holcombe but never Mir Aziz.
For @mathmom: My overall impression - I had a hard time getting into the book (quite possibly my fault rather than the book’s) but after a certain point it caught my interest. Initially I didn’t warm up to characters other than Mir Aziz. Since Avery doesn’t have a handle on Blake, we readers can’t. I also never got a feel for India - at least, not to the extent that reviews (+ question #5) suggest. On the other hand, I like that the end surprised me. And I also liked getting to know Blake - his character slowly grew on me with each revelation. I understood his taciturnity; he doesn’t take the assignment for any reason other than his regard for Mountstuart. All the rest can take a hike as far as he’s concerned. The betrayal from such a high level proved his lack of regard for The Company well-deserved. (I should have suspected Buchanan because Frank Macpherson is murdered and besmirched early on. Who but Buchanan could it have been really?)
I definitely did not see Mir Aziz as the bad guy. Nor did I suspect Frank was killed by the British. I’m no good at predicting mysteries at all - probably why they aren’t my favorite genre! Though I do seem to end up reading a lot of them…
I had a hard time – a very hard time – following the twists and turns. In fact, after about 65 pages, when I realized was getting cross-legged, I started over. And everytime there was a significant scene – more than just the scenery descriptions, which I really did enjoy – I re-read the scene. Sometimes more than once.
During the scenes in Jubbelpore (maybe on my third reading), I did figure out that the Thug threat was being milked by Sleeman so he would get more goodies. It was obvious to me that the Thugs couldn’t be so bad that they required such elaborate prisons, and the fact that none of them survived even a seven-year sentence really indicated that they were not being appropriately cared for.
By the time we got to the cave with Mountstuart, I didn’t care that much anymore. I too was surprised and disappointed by Mir Aziz being a turncoat, but at that point I was just reading to finish the book.