The 68^th floor of the Pinnacle, the finest luxury skyscraper in all of Mumbai. George Abercrombie, a Hollywood heart-throb whose star is waning with every passing day, is tired of life in India. The heat, the noise… he agreed to move there to support his young wife, Sweety, a Bollywood actor whose own star is rapidly rising. But perhaps enough is enough…

When he wakes one morning from a drunken haze, he finds Sweety in their bedroom, brutally murdered. Could he have killed her himself? They had just had an argument – but why are things missing from the room, such as her laptop? As George tries to cover his tracks and piece together what happened, two others are doing the same – Gemma, Sweety’s assistant and Amit, a servant. Both of them had their own secrets that they want to keep – but did one of them commit murder? And if not, who else could have entered one of the most secure buildings in India?

Oh, I really wanted to like this one more than I did. Abir Mukherjee’s work has always impressed me, from his Wyndham and Banerjee series (which I have criminally neglected) to his excellent standalone thriller Hunted and not forgetting his excellent work taking the piss out of fellow Red Hot Chilli Writer Vaseem Khan on the Murder Room podcast. He is especially proficient at world building and character work and the three leads here, which the narrative exclusively focuses on, one at a time, are an interesting set of characters, each with their own motivations.

The problem I found is that none of them were particularly likeable. George comes across as self-absorbed, Gemma seems very manipulative and Amit spends a lot of his time running away from various members of the Mumbai underworld. Usually with unsympathetic characters, there’s someone you like who brings a breath of fresh air when they return to the narrative, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case here. So when the plot sags a bit in the middle or the pace slows (and it is quite slow for a lot of the book) I found myself struggling a bit to maintain interest.

As the three parties converge for the final act, things pick up, especially as even then, it’s not exactly The Three Musketeers when it comes to teamwork, but the ending was let down a bit for me as while the person behind the events isn’t best friends with my old buddy Captain Obvious, I think they are at least nodding acquaintances.

But I don’t think the book is about that – although the denouement is very well done – its about the journey, the characters and the setting. I think this would have gelled better with me with a more sympathetic lead, but there is a lot of good work here, and if you want to read a thriller with a vibrant setting, you could do a lot worse that visit The Pinnacle. Just stay off the sixty-eighth floor…

The Pinnacle is out this week from Vintage in ebook and hardback. Many thanks to the publisher for the review e-copy.