Honorable Company A Novel of India Before the Raj [Paperback]

In a rousing follow-up to the critically acclaimedA 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....“When is a military adventure novel every bit as good as a history book, with the added pleasure for the reader of living it vicariously through the eyes, mind, heart and soul of an English cavalry officer in the early 19th century? When it is written by Allan Mallinson.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“A marvelous read, paced like a well-balanced symphony ... full of surprises and excitement.”
—The Times

“First-rate historical fiction.”
—Booklist

“A rousing tale of conspiracy [and] double-crossings ... Hervey is an enduring hero.”
—Publishers Weekly


Look for Allan Mallinson’sA Close Run Thing

Available wherever Bantam Books are soldAllan Mallinson is a serving cavalry officer in the British army and the author ofLight Dragoons, a history of British cavalry. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Rome, where he is military attaché.