Lotus and the Wind

Lotus and the Wind by Masters, John. Mass Market Paperback edition. ISBN: 9780345215796.

In 1879 Lieutenant Robin Savage is serving in the second Anglo-Afghan war as Britain and the Russian Empire engage in the Great Game that will decide Afghanistans future. Unjustly accused of cowardice Lieutenant Savage joins the Secret Service to prove his loyalty and he must unravel the mystery of "Atlar," the word written by an Afghan stranger in his own blood, to thwart the ambitions of Tsarist Russia. Only Savages love of the empty spaces of Afghanistans plains and his own courage will protect him as he sets out with a faithful Gurkha orderly to the furthest frontier of the British Empire. "John Masters captures the beauty, the strangeness and the splendour of the British Raj and evokes the tensions and conflicts of nineteenth-century Afghanistan with an authority unlike that of any other writer."