Fascinating and immensely readable
- TLS
Dash brings a confident organisation to his material, a rapid grasp of both personality and circumstance, and a bold eye for significant detail
- TELEGRAPH
The book is a mix of many genres: social history, detective novel, crime thriller, political narrative...an entertaining read
- Indian Express
Never in recorded history has there been a group of murderers as deadly as the Thugs. For nearly two centuries, groups of these lethal criminals haunted the roads of India, slaughtering travellers whom they met along the way with such efficiency, that over the years tens of thousands of men, women and children simply vanished without trace. Mike Dash, one of our best popular historians, has devoted years to combing archives in both India and Britain to discover how the Thugs lived and worked. Painstakingly researched and grippingly written, THUG tells, for the first time, the full story of the Thugs’ rise and fall from its beginnings in the late seventeenth century, to its eventual demise at the hands of British officer William Sleeman, in 1840.
Mike Dash is a Cambridge-educated historian and the author of several books acclaimed for their combination of quality writing and detailed original research. His titles include the international bestsellers TULIPOMANIA and BATAVIA’S GRAVEYARD, and more recently THUG and THE FIRST FAMILY. Dash is currently at work on another history and contributes regularly to newspapers and magazines ranging from the Sunday Telegraph to Fortean Times.