The Deceivers

The Savage Family Chronicles #2

by John Masters

The story shows how British officer and colonial administrator William Savage comes to know about the thuggee cult, infiltrates their society, learns their ways and code of communication, and destroys them by capturing or killing their key leaders. During his travels with the thuggee he almost falls prey to the cult's ways as he comes to experience the ecstasy of ritual killings.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, India, Adventure, Novels

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Masters was the son of a lieutenant-colonel whose family had a long tradition of service in the Indian Army. He was educated at Wellington and Sandhurst. On graduating from Sandhurst in 1933, he was seconded to the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI) for a year before applying to serve with the 4th Prince of Wales's Own Gurkha Rifles. He saw service on the North-West Frontier with the 2nd battalion of the regiment, and was rapidly given a variety of appointments within the battalion and the regimental depot, becoming the Adjutant of the 2nd battalion in early 1939.

During World War II his battalion was sent to Basra in Iraq, during the brief Anglo-Iraqi War. Masters subsequently served in Iraq, Syria and Persia. In early 1942, he attended the Indian Army Staff College at Quetta. Here he met the wife of a fellow officer and began an affair. They were later to marry. This caused a small scandal at the time.

After Staff College he first served as Brigade Major in 114th Indian Infantry Brigade before being "poached" by "Joe" Lentaigne, another officer from 4th Gurkhas, to be Brigade Major in 111th Indian Infantry Brigade, a Chindit formation. From March, 1944, the brigade served behind the Japanese lines in Burma. On the death of General Orde Wingate on 24 April, Lentaigne became the Chindits' overall commander and Masters commanded the main body of 111 Brigade.

In May, the brigade was ordered to hold a position code-named ‘Blackpool’ near Mogaung in northern Burma. The isolated position was attacked with great intensity for seventeen days and eventually the brigade was forced to withdraw. Masters had to order the medical orderlies to shoot 19 of his own men, casualties who had no hope of recovery or rescue. Masters later wrote about these events in the second volume of his autobiography, The Road Past Mandalay.

After briefly commanding the 3rd battalion of his regiment, Masters subsequently became GSO1 (the Chief of Staff) of Indian 19th Infantry Division, which was heavily involved in the later stages of the Burma Campaign, until the end of the war. After a spell as a staff officer in GHQ India in Delhi, he then served as an instructor at the British Army Staff College, Camberley. He left the army after this posting, and moved to the United States, where he attempted to set up a business promoting walking tours in the Himalayas, one of his hobbies. The business was not a success and, to make ends meet, he decided to write of his experiences in the army. When his novels proved popular, he became a full-time writer.

In later life, Masters and his wife Barbara moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. He died in 1983 from complications following heart surgery. His family and friends scattered his ashes from an aeroplane over the mountain trails he loved to hike. General Sir Michael Rose, the former UN commander in Bosnia, is a stepson of Masters.

Reviews

[Lanea · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novel is set in India during the height of the East India Company's power. Our protagonist is an officer in the EIC, and he learns about the thuggee cult's operation in the region he's responsible for. So he set out to find and crack the cult, accidentally ends up in Kali's service, mayhem ensues, and somehow he makes it out alive. I don't want to say much more than that. The history seems pretty good, though I'm no expert on India's history so it could all be crap. The writing is engaging, the plot is interesting and frightening. I'm really glad I finally got a copy.

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Betti's Books

[Suzette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters were totally believable and Masters really paints a vivid picture of India in the early 1800’s. Masters evokes the feel of how India was at that time, we are taken back to an India as it was almost 200 years ago. The plot is unusual and intriguing, something a bit different. I’m going to watch the movie and see how well it compares to the book. I have read ‘Bhowani Junction’ which is also a very good read and I’ve seen the movie several times. Love Masters writing, he captures the essence of India for me. I’m going on to read the Nightrunners of Bengal.

[Corto · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you can manage a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief (that a white Englishman could pass as an Indian and that an extremely widespread violent underground religion could exist for centuries without being exposed), you'll enjoy this book. Briefly, it's about the alleged cult of early-mid 19th century Kali worshippers who inveigle travelers into becoming the victims of ritualized killings, and the British officer who stumbles onto them and attempts to expose and destroy them. There is a factual basis to this novel- a British officer, William Sleeman did indeed mount a campaign against the Thuggees who had been committing similar depredations against travelers. Whether they were really a Kali-worshipping death cult is still a matter of debate. But there I go, not suspending disbelief- ok- if you take the sugar here (wink wink), this is a great little potboiler. It's a bit plodding and methodical for roughly the first half of the book- but remember, Masters was a former British Staff officer, who had a very methodical, deliberate military mind- it's this, that imbues the book with a very tactile realism. He knows the military mindset and it's actually quite thrilling when the characters act in a way that you can believe (despite the premise!). So maybe, "plodding" isn't a great adjective. There's a long, deliberate build-up to a nail-biting end. Masters also knows the physical ground and writes about it lovingly. You can feel, smell and taste Master's India. I enjoyed this one, and couldn't put it down once I was into roughly the last 1/2-1/3 of the book. Great stuff that gets the blood rushing. It's also interesting to note, that for a man of the WWII generation- he is more of a "Feminist" writer than many action writers today. His writes women as people, and not damsels in distress. Though he doesn't ignore the vulnerabilities of his female characters (vulnerabilities not uncommon to either gender) he puts women in dangerous situations in which they have agency and the ability to contribute to solving the problems at hand. This is the second novel of his that I've read, in which the male protagonists wouldn't have achieved what they did without the collaboration of their female partners. Very unusual for an action novel published in the early 1950's! I'm kind of sold on Masters. I'm going to be going through the rest of his "Savage Family Series". Cracking, brilliant stuff.

[Roger Norman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Bhowani Junction in the early 1960s, my first introduction to the thronging Indian subcontinent. Later I was to read Forster’s Passage to India, the Raj trilogy of Paul Scott, Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala,The Far Pavilions by MM Kaye, Jim Corbett’s tiger-hunting exploits, and his thoughtful, affectionate memoir My India, and, over the years, just about everything by Kipling. In the ‘90s I worked in India a few times and thought I would have the chance to find out what British writers had caught and what they had missed, but the Raj had been dead for fifty years – although Indian bookshops are still well-stocked with all the above writers. I lost all contact with John Masters until a recent encounter with a secondhand copy of The Deceivers (Penguin 1955) which has a b&w photo of the author on the back looking something like Trevor Howard. It’s a very ambitious story, depicting the Thuggee movement in the early nineteenth century, by means of a derring-do account of the experiences of a British District Commissioner and his wife. Thuggee was properly pronounced ‘tooggee’, Masters tell us, and thug was originally ‘toog’. History books usually find space for a brief description – ‘quasi-religious movement featuring ritual violence and mass murder’ (or words to that effect) – without giving any idea of its extent and formidable impact. According to Masters, in a historical note: ‘It is thought that Thuggee must have murdered well over a million people… constituting the greatest criminal conspiracy of history (up to that time)’. Wikipedia gives alternative estimates of the Thuggee deathcount, ranging from 500,000 to two million. The narrative of The Deceivers is of its time, somewhat overblown and melodramatic, dependent on unlikely coincidence, but still readable and engaging. The detail of the landscape (Jubbulpor-Nagpur-Allahabad), well-known to the author, is attractively reproduced, the details of Indian village life and 19th century travel struck me as authentic. Most readers of today will prefer the less melodramatic and more elaborately constructed fictions of Paul Scott. Me too, if I have to choose, but should I come across Nightrunners of Bengal (about the Mutiny) or The Lotus and the Wind (about the wars of the Northwestern Frontier Province) I’ll surely give ‘em a go.

[Thomas Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story so utterly thrilling that I finished it in a matter of days with no intention of doing so. As usual John Masters brings colonial India vividly to life, transporting the reader into a fascinating world where travel is dangerous, and murder and religion go hand in hand. Having previously read Nightrunners of Bengal and Bhowani Junction, it is my opinion that The Deceivers is better than both of those excellent novels. Surely a must read for fans of Masters and India.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
Adaptation of John Masters' 1952 novel set in India during British imperial rule.

After I've watched this fantastic movie (thanks Bettie!!), I'll give 5 stars for this book.

[Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was out of print when I last looked. One of the best "gripping yarns" ever. Accurate? I'm not sure, but a real page turner.

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is 'fact based' fictionalization written in 1952 of events of the British controlled Madhya region of India in 1825. The tale is all rather dashing as William Savage, the 'collector' of the area, goes under cover to expose and bring down the nationwide criminal network of Thuggee. The Thuggee are murderous gangs killing travelers for their jewels, they are followers of Kali a female goddess; Williamis recently married to Mary now pregnant. The backdrop is suttee (the real burning of widows on their husband's pyre) and the interfaith interactions of Islam and Hindu peoples. Chases, murder and initiation 'sugar' are all there to find.

For it's adventure and derring-do the deeper angle is William is deceiving Mary about his likelihood of returning alive, himself into turning to the dark-side as leader of the group, and the whole state being aware and complicit.

So actually an informative, scenic and driven adventure; I imagined it being rather cinematic and sure enough I see there is a film-tie in edition from 1988.

So the one downer for me is really the plausibility of a colonial white person really being that able to 'brown-up' and act so as to pass so convincingly in an organization so imbued with custom and local dialects etc. {not least that at once the brown-up is easily washed off one minute but later sustains for months?}

Who knew the word Thug originates from Thuggee?

[Alex Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unexpectedly good book.

Written in 1952, this work could have been written in one of many eras, perhaps excluding the politically correct one that we currently find ourselves imprisoned in.

Master makes the point that he itches to make about Man & War & Death and how all of these ingredients are inextricably combined in the soup of existence.

He also does a fairly good job of representing the ambivalent mechanisms and mindset of British Imperialism in a relatively unjudgemental way that Allows the reader scope for his own interpretations that I found refreshing.

The finish was rather abrupt, not particularly smooth or brilliant. But other than this flaw, which is substantial, the book is a good bit of writing.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Savage, an area official in the East India Company discovers a mass grave. When his superiors show little interest he decides to hunt down and infiltrate the murderers. Part boys-own-adventure channelling Lawrentian-like mystical experiences, William’s story brings a version of 1820’s India to life. A country that tolerated the act of Suttee & the putting to death of some prisoners by reluctant trampling elephant.

Apparently over 1 million travellers were murdered by Thuggee followers, who raised the act of befriending and then mugging into a quasi-religious experience.

A fascinating story, but I couldn’t quite believe the characters of William & his incredibly understanding wife, and this wasn’t a page-turner for me.

[Bruce Perry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Master's novel isn't as captivating or finely crafted as his gripping and entertaining war memoir The Road Past Mandalay, which I'm also reading. This novel might be apt for those interested in the British Raj, as it profiles a man from England who heads up a Colonial station. He then masquerades as an ordinary Indian man to gather evidence on the deceivers, an extensive gang of killers from that era (we get our word "thug" from them). I just didn't believe the plot or characters and want to go along with them.

[Pam Keevil · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the protagonist stumbles upon a murder, he witnesses a ritual killing by followers of Kali, referred to as Thugs or deceivers. He goes undercover to gather enough evidence to bring the group to justice but in so doing becomes drawn into the cult and commits murder. So the reader has to wonder all the way through whether he will succumb or do what he planned; and all this is based on a true story set in India in the 19th century. The plot is gripping but the style might not appeal to modern readers as the prose can be a little heavy going.

[Steven Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am glad that I checked this book out from the library instead of succumbing to temptation and ordering it from Amazon. The book was ok, but got a lot better towards the end. This book is rather plodding in the beginning, and can be tedious at times. The characters are well described and very easy to empathize with.

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had been wanting to read this book since seeing a movie version of it and finally found a used copy. It starts off slowly but the action gains speed at the end. I do find some things almost unbelievable and the violence is rather upsetting.

[Chiefdonkey Bradey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drenched in light and horror and love

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first time I knew about Thugs and Thuggee from the film Gunga Din. This book by John Masters really gives me a feeling of India and the mysterious cult of Kali. I enjoyed immensely.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

It wasn't until I came back from my first visit to India that I realised how John Masters had shaped my understanding of that vast, complicated, demanding country. His voice was the one I heard when I travelled through Chennai and Mumbai, Kerala and Goa.

I read The Deceivers at 'an impressionable age' but even so, when I revisited it in 2002 I was still impressed by how Masters shapes the idea of the 'outsider' later encapsulated philosophically by Edward Said of blessed memory, into a narrative form that shows the British as 'outside' India, despite controlling the country economically, and the price one man pays to become an insider.

But philosophy aside, this is still the best fictional exploration of cult behaviour I've read - Thuggee could be Mansonism or Branch Davidianism today; Masters somehow managed to work out what the components of indoctrination were, long before terror camps were invented, or Stockholm syndrome thought of, weave those components into a fantastic adventure yarn, and take the reader on a physical and psychological journey into India in the persona of his protagonist, who is no hero, and yet, by the end, he is. But he's a hero with a very dark secret that the reader shares ...

Other Masters books are more mystical, The Lotus and the Wind in particular, but this one picks up where Rudyard Kipling left Kim, throws the reader into a world of suspense, death and spying, adds some sex and love, and instils a love of India that this reader, at least, has never lost.

[Darius · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows William Savage on an adventure fraught with danger, both physical and moral. Not the most quick-witted British Collector, Savage goes up against a nebulous cult of 19th century highway robbers, closely based on the Indian Thugs of those times.

Into this adventurous melodrama of thieves and murderers, Masters mixes dramatic tests of our hero's character. He even takes us on a Dostoevsky-like adventure into the mind of a man who has experimented with evil power and is slipping over the precipice of no return.

Since Masters's writes historical fiction, its easy to get caught up in the historical element. It's also easy to get critical when he gets something wrong, or takes an Englishman's perspective. Yet, the most interesting parts of his novels are the little bits of internal conflict his heroes often feel. The reader is there, alongside the hero, feeling the conflict. The reader can feel the delicious temptation of being a powerful brigand, imposing one's will on others, doing whatever one wishes. Sadly, Masters's did not know how to have his heroes argue themselves out of their inner conflicts. The heroes extricate themselves, and make the right choices, but it is a bit unsatisfying that they choose emotionally.

The best thing I can say about this book is that I wanted to read it in one sitting.

[Mothpit · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book greatly. It was a story that compells the reader to not to put it down and read on.
The plot is the following: William Savage stops a woman from committing szatí and because of that he meets with a man who shows him a murder. Slowly he learns about the world of the deceivers as he tries to collect enough imformation to stop Kálí's servants.

The characters were great. I loved Husszein's simple reasons and loyality, I admired Mary's strenght and I really hope to grow into a woman like her. And I upsolutly adored William. I loved how he grow into a confident and determined man.

I loved how he had to fight against Kálí's pull. I loved the conflict inside of him. It made him real because I believe that everyone would have been tempted to become a true deceiver in his place. In truth, this inner fight made the book a special one for me.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A classic tale of romanticized British India. The Deceivers is a page-turner driven by suspense as a Brit works under cover to investigate the murderous Thugs and becomes intimately familiar with their brutality. At completion I immediately ordered a handful of Master's other works.

[Philip Mc · Rating 3 out of 5]

great adventure - central India, John Sleeman, Jabalpur central jail, carpet and tent makers, thugs, thugi

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading 1959 reprint of Orange Penguin series number 1085

[Tony Hale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterful as author's name suggests. Great introduction to his classic series of books about the British in the Raj set around the quasi-fictitious Savage family.