Some writers put out a book every year. That's actually very hard to do, unless you are James Patterson who seems to put out a new book every five minutes. Then there are the authors who take their time. They are doing their research. They are making certain that everything is just right. Amitav Ghosh is one of those rare writers who seems to vanish for a few years as he is burrowing in to his current project. I waited a long time for him to finally publish his novel "Flood of Fire." It was well worth the wait.
This is the final book in his magisterial Ibis Trilogy. These books take readers through the period leading up to the Opium War between Great Britain and China and in this final book the war is finally getting underway. Ghosh stages these stories brilliantly. The history is solid. The language is dazzling. His characters leap off the pages. Ghosh has no equal in our modern day literature.
