M.J. Carter

M.J. Carter is the fiction name of historian and former journalist Miranda Carter. The Strangler Vine opens the Blake and Avery mystery series in Calcutta in 1837, when inexperienced East India Company officer William Avery is ordered to accompany the linguist and political agent Jeremiah Blake in search of a missing writer. Their journey moves through princely courts, bazaars, Company politics, and contested accounts of the Thuggee suppression. The novel was longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize and became a finalist for the Edgar Award for best novel. The series continues with The Infidel Stain, later issued as The Printer’s Coffin, and The Devil’s Feast. Under her full name, Carter wrote nonfiction about Anthony Blunt and the royal cousins George V, Nicholas II, and Wilhelm II. The Strangler Vine brings that historical research into an adventure structure while questioning how imperial institutions turn rumor, scholarship, and official power into accepted history.