The Pinnacle: A Novel

by Abir Mukherjee

James Abercrombie is a Hollywood actor who’s past his prime. Ten years ago, he was box office. These days he’s more boxed wine and coffee adverts.

But they still love him in Asia. On the set of a whisky commercial, he meets the beautiful Sweety Sahota, India’s queen of Bollywood, beloved by billions. Marrying her might revive his fortunes.

They move to Mumbai and into The Pinnacle. Sweety’s career continues to sky-rocket. James’s not so much. He hates India – it’s hot and dirty and crowded and the food upsets his stomach. Soon the marriage is in trouble. Is she cheating on him? The papers seem to think so. They have a clandestine photo of her with her ex-boyfriend, Bollywood heart-throb Chunky.

James hits the bottle, and after one particularly drunken session, wakes in the apartment to find Sweety dead in their bed, her throat slit. Did he kill her? He’s sure he didn’t, but who the hell’s going to believe him?

He needs to find out who killed his wife and why, and he needs to do it fast; before the crime is pinned on him, because, let’s face it, he’s not going to get a fair trial. If he doesn’t work it out, he's as good as dead.

Genres: Mystery Thriller, Fiction, Mystery

432 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication June 18, 2026

About the author

Abir Mukherjee is the Times bestselling author of the Sam Wyndham series of crime novels set in Raj era India. His debut, A Rising Man, won the CWA Endeavour Dagger for best historical crime novel of 2017 and was shortlisted for the MWA Edgar for best novel. His second novel, A Necessary Evil, won the Wilbur Smith Award for Adventure Writing and was a Zoe Ball Book Club pick. His third novel, Smoke and Ashes, was chosen by the Sunday Times as one of the 100 Best Crime & Thriller Novels since 1945. Abir grew up in Scotland and now lives in London with his wife and two sons.

Reviews

[Shannon Moeser · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE PINNACLE by Abir Mukherjee is the first book to be placed in my "2026-favourites" folder. I believe it's Mukherjee's best thus far, and I have given several of his books a 5 star rating. I give this one a 5+ star rating.

To reach this pinnacle for me (pun intended), a novel must have:
1) Excellent writing;
2) Well-rounded characters; and
3) Social relevance.

THE PINNACLE has, in addition, lots of humour, which adds to its enjoyment. I laughed many times while reading the first chapter and continued laughing throughout the book, even though there were also numerous serious scenes. It is this conjunction of humour and deep issues that gives the whole its strength. (Like the combination of strengths and flaws that create the well-rounded characters.)

Brief Synopsis

George Abercrombie was once a top-rated Hollywood action star, but he's aging, plus he pissed off the newly elected US president. Consequently, George is now reduced to promoting whisky (and other products) in commercials being filmed in India. Why India? Because George married his beautiful (and much younger) co-star, Sweety, while making his last movie. Sweety was, and is, a Bollywood star, who gets plenty of work in India. So, because of George's problems at home in America, they have moved to India, where they bought an apartment in the Pinnacle, a 70-story marble tower that is home to many VIPs living in Mumbai.

Their marriage isn't perfect. Still George loves Sweety, and consequently when he finds her dead—murdered—the morning after he spent the night sleeping off a bender on the sofa, he is reasonably sure he didn't kill her in a drunken rage, even though they had quarrelled before he went out drinking with his pals. Who killed her? Possibly his PA, Amit, who had brought him home the night before and was now missing.

The story is told from the perspectives of George, Amit, and Glenda (Sweety's PA). The question is who killed Sweety, and why.

Mystery, Thriller, or Social Commentary

Although structured as a mystery, I was quite sure I knew who was behind Sweety's murder by the 15% point in the story, and I think that many readers will identify the most likely villain from clues presented in early chapters. This is not a mystery; it's a thriller, following the travails of the main characters as they seek to discover the truth. It was their actions and the repercussions of these actions that kept me quickly turning pages, engrossed until the end, during this long, complex book.

I think that it works superbly as a thriller mainly because of the intersection of humour and social commentary throughout the narrative.

Plus, Mukherjee is a great writer. He uses imagery skillfully. Not only visual imagery; he also constantly evoked smell and sound images that greatly increased my enjoyment of THE PINNACLE.

This novel is about sexism, about extreme wealth inequality—that is occurring NOW—in India. It is highly relevant. Yet it made me laugh while contemplating these uneasy circumstances.

Highly recommended!!

Thanks to Little, Brown and Company for providing an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinions.

[M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m a big fan of this author’s 1920s Wyndham & Banerjee detective series, so I was super excited to read this. A contemporary setting and a thriller rather than an investigation sounds very good.
George used to be a Hollywood film star handing out autographs and posing for the paparazzi, but he pissed off the wrong people in the US and now he is living in Mumbai doing mediocre commercials. His wife Sweety is a pretty, young Bollywood star who can and will outshine him. One morning he wakes up and finds her dead in bed. Now what?

In the Wyndham & Banerjee series, the stories satirize and critique the colonial setting and show how ridiculous and hypocritical it is. Here, it’s the immense wealth inequality that gets put through the ringer. George and Sweety are celebrities with billions in the bank. Assistant Gemma is just a working class American. Employee Amit is an Indian man barely getting by. The things George takes for granted are luxuries to Gemma and the things he doesn’t even bother with are the things Amit depends upon for survival.
As in his other series, the author creates an immersive setting from the gilded luxury apartments to the seedy alleys. Then, he fillets the workings of this unfair setting with sharp humour and a lot of irony. This particular combination is something that made me love his other series and it’s just as great here. The book is filled with little jokes about walkie talkies, king Midas getting drunk with French monarchs and shady agent Sal Copeland the third (grandson of equally shady agent Sal Copeland from 1926)

The perspective changes between George, assistant Gemma and other employee Amit worked well to obscure the truth. George was drunk that night, Gemma is blackmailed and Amit is in trouble with a crime boss. All of them act like they did not kill her, all of them suspect the other two. The author is great at revealing information at the right time, offering hints and posing questions in a way that kept me reading. This was not meant to be a detective with a protagonist following clues, but rather a suspenseful story of three secretive people with a murder between them. I wanted a thriller, and this book delivered it hands down.

None of them are particularly likeable people, but all of them are well written characters with the good and bad traits that come with being rich/an assistant/a poor man.
George isn’t outright awful, but too much of a coward to acknowledge that he isn’t great either. He thinks too highly of himself and not enough of other people. Sweety is Ms Sahota, not Mrs Abercrombie. Maybe she actually liked him, maybe she just wanted to marry him to make it big in the states. She disapproves of George letting the staff in the rich people elevator but interacts with them as people in a way that he doesn’t.
Amit is a sleaze who just wants to get by, doesn’t mind taking what his rich employers won’t miss and is a clever improviser. But is he actually that bad, or did he just learn from the worst? Gemma is the only character I didn’t fully grasp. Her plot is deeply intertwined with her loving some guy, yet I haven’t the faintest clue why they are in a relationship. I understand that she just wants to enjoy the fun and delights of being with him, very fair, but I didn’t understand why she stuck with him the entire time. We’re just meant to accept that she has a deep relationship with some man and it is never explained?
They all turned it around in the end, and I liked how they all ended up.

As for George, I described him to a friend as: What if Sam Wyndham married Estelle?? And he was acxused of murdering her?? And he was allowed to say fuck
His narration is nearly identical, filled with the jaded bitterness of a man who used to be happy but now spends his days hating everything. Yet Sam Wyndham was a world war 1 veteran with PTSD in a time when shell shock was considered for weaklings and everybody he cared for died, so I’ll begrudge him his cynicism. In fact, it made him realistic and somewhat sympathetic. George on the other hand is rich and famous, thinks he can make an award-worthy film and has no particular reason to be dramatic.
I did feel like Sweety’s death is genuinely impactful for his character. Sam Wyndham’s dead wife has always been a faceless plot device, but George’s thoughts and feelings about Sweety have a real depth to them which I missed in Sam.
In the second half, he proved himself significantly different from Sam, and I was happy to see him develop into his own character.
I still maintain he and Sam should start a whiskey-and-complaining-club though.

[Melody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Waking up to find your wife murdered, blood on your shirts and no memory of what happened after you got blackout drunk- this is the predicament George finds himself in the morning his wife is dead in their bed.
He can’t trust the police- he’s a foreigner in Mumbai but he also can’t just leave the body there.

Gemma, formerly George’s PA and now his wife’s, finds herself a victim of blackmail after her illicit affair with a well known politician is threatened to be exposed. The information she needs is at the crime
Scene and she can’t get in to help herself.

Then there’s Amit- the manservant who robbed George and his wife that night and is now being blamed for murder himself. That’s not his only problem though as he already has more dangerous folk than the police after him.

So whodunnit? Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC so I
Could find out

[Seth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the premise of this story - an American living in India and the murder of his Bollywood star wife. The story is told in 3 POVs; the husband, his servant, and his wife’s American PA. I really liked how the author was able to weave their stories together and each one was written with a clearly different, distinctive voice. It also helped me understand the political and social structure of India a little better. I did guess the eventual culprit fairly early on, but the ending still brought it all together in an interesting and satisfying way. I’ll definitely be looking for more of this author’s work in the future.

[Kerry Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not for me. The main problem I had was that I hated every single viewpoint character. I understand that you weren't really supposed to like them but it just didn't keep me engaged because I did not care at all what happened to any of them. The other problem I had was how hard the author was working to SAY SOMETHING. While I agree with his points, I found it a little too on the nose and it was so repetitive. If this hadn't been a netgalley read, I would have DNF'ed this after the first chapter.

[Ola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very strong 50-60%, I was hooked - but it teetered out a bit after that. I think it could’ve been a tad shorter to keep the fast-paced intrigue, and some elements of the resolution were pretty predictable. Still a fun read though!