"For five hundred years a confederation of murderers held sway over the roads of India: the brotherhood of the Yellow Scarf, mysterious stranglers of Thuggee. They killed on a vast scale, and the lives they claimed were millions in number."

The rise and fall of Thuggee, the legendary cult of Kali, remains one of the most contentious aspects of British rule in India. Were the Thugs - as the British claimed - an ancient band of religious stranglers, or were they victims of a vast colonial witch-hunt?

Discovered and suppressed by the British East India Company in the early nineteenth century, Thuggee helped shape imperial ideas of law, governance and racial superiority, helping to cement the essential divide between 'them' and 'us'. The shocking revelations about ritualised murder on the subcontinent quickly became a source of horror and fascination in Victorian society, working its way into the popular imagination and becoming a lurid staple of both fact and fiction ever since.

Incorporating historical accounts and contemporary critiques, Killing for Kali explores the enduring influence of the Orientalist account of Thuggee, from the early nineteenth century until the present day. From Victorian mystery fiction to the golden age of comic books, Hammer horror to Merchant Ivory, from Indiana Jones to Highlander, the villainous Thugs have stalked the public imagination for two hundred years.

Drawing on an unprecedented range of sources drawn from literature, film, television, comic books, gaming and music, Killing for Kali explores how the Thugs have upheld their role as the West's ultimate exotic 'other' whilst simultaneously mutating and adapting to reflect the shifting cultural and political landscape of our times.