Abir Mukherjee

Abir Mukherjee (born circa 1974)^[1] is a British-Indian^[2] author best known for his crime novels. He wrote the Wyndham and Banerjee series set in the British Raj era in India.

Abir Mukherjee
Abir Mukherjee at Glasgow University, 2019
Nationality	British-Indian
Occupation	Author
Spouse	Sonal
Children	2

Personal life

Mukherjee's parents moved from Calcutta, India to the United Kingdom before he was born.^[1][3] He grew up in Scotland and now lives in Surrey, England with his wife (Sonal) and two sons.^[4][5]

Career

Before beginning his writing career, Mukherjee was an accountant for 20 years.^[1][6] In 2013, at age 39, Mukherjee learned that Lee Child did not begin writing until age 40 and was inspired to begin writing himself.^[1][6] He began writing A Rising Man in September of that year, and was motivated to keep going partly by the Telegraph's Harvill Secker Crime Writing Competition^[6][7] which he won the following year.^[8][9] The novel was ultimately published in 2016.

Mukherjee's Wyndham & Bannerjee series is based in Raj-era India. The main protagonists are Calcutta policemen Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Surendranath "Surrender-not" Bannerjee. Mukherjee has stated that this era of colonization in India intrigues him because he did not learn about it in British schooling, and the stories his parents shared about India differed significantly from what he learned in the classroom.^[10]

In May 2024, Harvill Secker published Abir Mukherjee's first standalone thriller, Hunted, set during the final week of a toxic presidential campaign and which sees the parents of two political extremists trying to extricate their children from the violence set to occur.^[11][12]

Awards

Year	Title	Award	Result	Ref.
2014	A Rising Man	Telegraph Harvill Secker Crime Writing Prize	Winner	[8][9][7]
2017		CWA Gold Dagger	Shortlist	[13]
		CWA Historical Dagger	Winner	[4][14][15]
		HWA Gold Crown Award	Shortlist	[16]
		Jhalak Prize	Shortlist	[17]
2018		Barry Award for Best First Novel	Nominee
		Edgar Award for Best Novel	Nominee	[18]
		Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year	Shortlist	[19]
	A Necessary Evil	CWA Gold Dagger	Shortlist	[20]
		CWA Historical Dagger	Shortlist	[20]
		CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger	Longlist	[21]
		Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize	Winner	[22][4]
2019	Smoke and Ashes	CWA Sapere Books Historical Dagger	Shortlist	[23]
		CWA Gold Dagger	Longlist	[24]
		HWA Gold Crown Award	Shortlist	[25]
2020		Edgar Award for Best Novel	Nominee	[26][27]
		Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year	Shortlist	[28]
	Death in the East	CWA Sapere Books Historical Dagger	Winner	[14][29]
2021		Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year	Shortlist	[30]
2022	Shadows of Men	CWA Gold Dagger	Shortlist	[31]

Publications

Wyndham and Banerjee series

• A Rising Man (2016)
• A Necessary Evil (2017)
• Smoke and Ashes (2018)
• Death in the East (2019)
• The Shadows of Men (2021)
• The Burning Grounds (2025)

Other novels

• Hunted (2024)