Honorable Company: A Novel of India Before the Raj

In a rousing follow-up to the critically acclaimed A Close Run Thing Captain Matthew Hervey makes the hazardous sea voyage to India for what the Duke of Wellington has called “deuced tricky work.”. As Wellington’s new aide-de-camp Matthew’s covert mission will embroil him in the jostling of native potentates and England’s encroaching East India Company — both threatened by lawless bands of horsemen bent on plunder and massacre. . When Matthew’s journeying leads him to the small key state of Chintal he thinks himself close to his objective. But at the rajah’s sumptuous court he discovers that war in India is waged as often with money and spies as with the clear-cut tactics of the battlefield — with battles won through devious conversations and murderous perfidy. And Matthew torn between his honor and his destiny is drawn deeper into the court’s serpentine coils than he ever dreamed....