Cover image of "Hunted,"

For several years, I’ve luxuriated in the rich period details in the Wyndham and Banerjee series of historical detective novels set in 1920s Calcutta. The Anglo-Indian author Abir Mukherjee does a masterful job of blending superior suspense fiction with an historical setting solidly grounded on research. There are six novels to date in the series, and I loved every one. So I turned with some reluctance to the author’s newest novel, a thriller set in the United States today. But the result was electric. I’ve rarely read a story that more quickly drew me into the lives of its characters. And I was astonished at how frequently the story surprised me. Hunted is a triumph! It may be the best thriller in years.

Hundreds of casualties in a Los Angeles mall

Hunted opens with a massive terrorist attack on a Los Angeles mall. Two bombers, Yasmin and Jack, carry backpacks into the most heavily-trafficked spot in the mall. Then, Jack disappears and Yasmin, panicked, runs for the exit. But her bomb explodes anyway, causing 63 deaths and 114 injuries. It’s the worst terrorist attack in America since 9/11. And the FBI’s Los Angeles office immediately shifts into high gear. But Dan, the Special Agent in Charge, heeds the fire department’s command not to send anyone into the mall to search for evidence. Only one of his agents, Shreya Mistry, forces her way past the protective cordon and climbs down to the basement, where the surveillance center is located. It’s she who observes Yasmin running for the exit.

Hunted by Abir Mukherjee (2025) 388 pages ★★★★★

Aftermath of a terrorist attack similar to the one in a Los Angeles mall in this novel
Aftermath of a terrorist attack similar to the one in a Los Angeles mall in this novel. Image: Mahmoud Issa – Atlantic Council

A troubled FBI investigator

Shreya is Mukherjee’s protagonist. She’s a veteran Indo-American FBI Special Agent. The author never explicitly places her on the autism spectrum, but it’s clear from her behavior that that’s the case. Shreya obsessively pursues every case, which frequently causes her to disobey orders. She routinely misreads others’ intentions. And she is inarticulate, incapable of explaining her decisions to her superiors or her colleagues. The upshot is that Dan and her colleagues regard her as a troublemaker despite her record of success. And instead of celebrating her discovery of the surveillance footage, he takes her off the case, reassigning her to border duty in San Diego. An order which, of course, Shreya will disregard. Despite the universal conclusion that the attack was engineered by Islamic terrorists of something called the Sons of the Caliphate, which nobody had ever heard of before, Shreya thinks something else is going on. Because where did Jack go, and why would Yasmin run for the exit?

The investigation unfolds in the closing days of a presidential election like 2024’s

The Los Angeles attack has come at a fraught time. It’s the closing days before a presidential election that closely resembles 2016 or 2024’s. A loudmouthed bigot named Chuck Costa, who has never before held elective office, is running for the top office in the land. He’s “a guy who was quite possibly deranged, whom you wouldn’t trust to look after your pets, whom half the populace saw as an egotistical nutjob who’d run over his own mother to get into the White House.” Costa is running against Vice President Greenwood, who is a woman. Knowing this, any discerning reader will be likely to conclude early in this book that the story’s climax is likely to come on the last day of the campaign or election day itself. And of course that’s the case. But getting there is all the fun. Abir Mukherjee is as talented at writing a thriller as he is at historical fiction.

About the author

Photo of Abir Mukherjee, author of
Abir Mukherjee. Image: Nick Tucker – RCW Literary Agency

Abir Mukherjee was born in in 1974 in the United Kingdom shortly after his parents moved there from Calcutta (now Kolkata). He grew up in Scotland but now lives in England with his wife and two sons.

Mukherjee practiced accounting for 20 years before turning to writing at the age of 39. He has since won numerous awards for the six novels published to date in his widely read Wyndham & Bannerjee historical detective series set in 1920s India. Hunted is his first thriller.

I’m reviewing all the author’s historical detective fiction. For links to the books, see The Wyndham and Banerjee historical detective novels set in colonial India.

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