The Patient Assassin - Anita Anand

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ISBN: 978-1-47711-7421-6 

Verdict: 👍 👎

Having finished reading the "Patient Assassin" I was very very patient to find out about more about this individual!

Fact based evidence relating to the assassin was missing.

More about the British Raj.


Maybe it was my asian bias ? but I found this book seriously annoying in parts, with its ‘Colonial’ bias and glorification of the "Good Son" - Rex Dwyer ,the Mass Murderer, who during his term murdered & tortured thousands of innocent Indians. 

 Part 1 of the Book is not about the Assassin its all over the place - with irrelevant snippets e.g. p64 Gandhi devoted the rest of his time to weaving his way around India " -P81 Civilised men met at ten o'clock , P107 Ishward das was still deep in the bazar - this has no relevance to Udam(the Assassin) on P112 she tries to discredit the assassin "a man bourn with so little who wanted to be so much more"

I appreciate the author is a BBC Journalist and not a Historian - but when you write books on Historical figures you need to stay away from comments like "it is more likely" and show evidence (P153 - he seemed? what evidence)


 Disappointed is an understatement for me in this book, primarily because it was written by a fellow Punjabi, who clearly missed the  opportunity to explain the basic  cause/effect and outcomes. 

The problem with this book is that it deviates away from the assassin and delves  more into the environment of the day - so the title is very misleading title hence the 👎



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