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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Patriots in Shadows by Krishna Kumar is set in 1940s British India, where Les Filles en Jaune, a secret circle of wealthy Indian women, make use of their extensive privilege and social access to support Subhas Chandra Bose, the exiled independence leader commanding the Indian National Army against Britain. Rohini Iyer in Calcutta protects Major Anil Biswas, an Indian soldier turned covert operative after capture in Singapore, as he targets British military supply routes. Penelope White in Bombay uses her shipping company to move information as the war reaches the city’s docks. After Fort William burns and the SS Imperial River explodes at Victoria Docks, police officers Partho Chatterji, Harding, and Aadhar Joshi begin linking scattered incidents to one hidden network preparing India for Bose’s return
Krishna Kumar’s Patriots in Shadows is brilliant wartime historical fiction, and proves just how much period detail empowers a story, as well as a totally immersive landscape. Kumar has readers right on Victoria Docks in Bombay, where torpedoes and flammable cargo crackle, and inside the Maheshwari family home in Calcutta, where rosewood elephants barely conceal the hidden political danger. The best part is the women. I love it when we see female protagonists exercising agency, and Kumar gives us a few. Penelope White, a Bombay shipping heiress inside Les Filles en Jaune, and Rohini Iyer, a Calcutta society woman who runs famine kitchens, are my absolute favorites. Kumar fleshes them and everyone else out thoroughly, breathing life into each. Well written and immersive, readers who enjoy historical wartime fiction and the fight against and fall of colonial occupation will adore this.
