Product Description

New Year's Eve, 1856. As Captain Rodney Savage of the 13th Rifles, Bengal Native Infantry, celebrates the start of 1857 with his wife and friends in the isolated cantonment of Bhowani, news comes of a crisis that will have terrifying and widespread repercussions: the Rajah of the neighbouring native state of Kishanpur has been assassinated, and the Rani has had thirty-five of the culprits garrotted. With unrest mounting, the British have no option but to send troops to protect her and her young son. In the following months, as tension erupts into violence and the British begin to wonder whether even their closest servents are trustworthy, Rodney has good cause to remember the quiet comment of Caroline Langford, a visitor from England: 'India is your palace, but you live shut up in little rooms like the Bhowani Cantonment, and the next English room is always away at the other end of the palace somewhere.' Combining the flare of a true story-teller with an intuitive sense of history born of his own deep knowledge and love of India, John Masters re-creates the horror of the Indian Mutiny that was to mark the end of British complacency in the huge sub-continent which they had thought their own. Never again would they feel so secure amid a native population that vastly outnumbered them. The seeds of discontent had been sown, to bear fruit ninety years later in India's painfully won independence.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #174441 in Books
• Published on: 2000-05-11
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

About the Author
John Masters was a general in the British Army and served on the North-West frontier.

Customer Reviews

How do I tell Amazon that their synopsis is illiterate?
The synopsis to this book talks about "servents" and "flare", when it means "flair". I don't know how one can inform Amazon of this and ask that the errors be corrected other than by writing a review.

The Lotus and the Wind
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - it was a 'ripping yarn' of the type that one associates with John Buchan, but with a much more complex hero than the reassuringly stolid Richard Hannay. Robin Savage is forced to go into intelligence work when he is falsely accused of cowardice, and becomes embroiled in the 'Great Game' - the struggle between Russia and Great Britain over control of India. He uncovers a plot by two Russian agents - again both of them very interesting characters - to invade India through Afghanistan, and risks his life on numerous occasions. The name of the book refers to his need to choose between domestic life and security (represented by the lotus of the title) and the more exciting and solitary life of espionage and exploration. The love interest is provided by Anne, his wife, who initially supports him in all his endeavours and eventually is forced to accept that she cannot hold him. A great adventure story with a very interesting lvoe story woven into it - highly recommended.