Damascened Blade (Joe Sandilands 3) [Paperback]

Barbara Cleverly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 24, 2004 | Series: Joe Sandilands 3

The North-West Frontier, 1910. The screams of a wounded British officer abandoned at the bottom of a dark ravine are heard by a young Scottish subaltern. Ignoring the command to retreat back to base the Highlander sets out alone, with dagger in hand, to rescue his fellow officer from the Pathan tribesmen who are slowly torturing him to death. Over a dozen years later the backwash of this tragedy threatens to engulf Joe Sandilands. On secondment from Scotland Yard, Joe is spending a fortnight with his old army friend, James Lindsay, commander of the front line fort at Gor Khatri. An uneasy peace is in operation with the Afghans but into this already-delicate situation is injected an ill-assorted group of visitors to the fort. After a skirmish which results in the death of a Pathan prince and the taking of hostages, Joe and his companion James are given seven days in which to identify, arrest and execute the killer before the frontier erupts into war. Drawing on all his courage and detective skills Joe must find out who the murderer is before more bloody deaths occur, the legacy of a bitter feud with its roots hidden deep in the past.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Devotees of classic Golden Age whodunits will delight in British author Cleverly's third Joe Sandilands mystery set in India in 1922; it evokes, and in some ways surpasses, the work of Agatha Christie. The resourceful and insightful Sandilands assumes a glorified babysitting assignment when a rich and attractive American heiress expresses a desire to tour India's dangerous northwest frontier with Afghanistan during a period of heightened political tension. The heiress and Sandilands end up at a frontier outpost with a motley collection of companions—a Pathan prince and his kinsman, a female doctor en route to serve the amir ruling Afghanistan, a sleazy entrepreneur, an RAF pilot hoping to gain support for an increased military aerial presence and a veteran civil servant advocating a British retreat. When the prince is found dead, evidence suggesting foul play is suppressed. Sandilands is forced to act on his suspicions when the victim's kinsman takes a hostage and imposes a one-week deadline for a solution to the crime. Cleverly does a masterful job of combining traditional puzzle elements, including false endings and subtle fair-play clues, with convincing period atmosphere and characters with more complexity and sophistication than Christie typically provided. This marvelous historical delivers on the promise of the author's first two mysteries—The Last Kashmiri Rose (2002) and Ragtime in Simla (2003)—and should add to her growing U.S. fan base.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Scotland Yard commander Joe Sandilands never seems to get a real vacation. His third attempt finds him again in India during the Raj, this time near the Afghan border in the northwest. While visiting an old army friend, James Lindsay, Sandilands receives orders to chaperone American heiress Lily Coblenz, who is in search of adventure and the "real" India. The situation at Gor Khatri, a frontier fort, is tense. The fragile peace with the local Pathan tribesmen is broken, a Pathan prince dies, and British hostages are taken. Sandilands and his crew have one week to identify, arrest, and execute the prince's killer and avoid a war. As she did in The Last Kashmiri Rose (2002) and Ragtime in Simla (2003), Cleverly uses her portrayal of life at the fort to capture the essence of the declining British Empire. She also introduces several strong feminist characters who prove that they are more than capable of surviving in the harsh frontier environment. This excellent historical mystery gains immediacy in light of recent events in the region. Barbara Bibel
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Robinson Publishing (June 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841199168
• ISBN-13: 978-1841199160
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,559,418 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Barbara Cleverly is a former teacher and a graduate of Durham University who now lives in Cambridge. Her debut, The Last Kashmiri Rose, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2002.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very strong historical mystery in the last days of the Raj, September 9, 2004

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Damascened Blade: The Third Novel Featuring Detective Joe Sandilands (Joe Sandilands Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Between the world wars, peace is uneasy on the border between British India and Afghanistan. When a tribal group arrives at a British fort to escort a British doctor into Afghanistan, it looks like a chance for peace. By chance, a British Lord, an American millionairess, a London Detective, a British Air Force officer, and an Indian civil servant are also in the fort when, disaster, the leader of the escort is found dead. The doctor is quick to proclaim an accident, but detective Joe Sandilands doesn't believe it--the evidence is just a bit off. If it wasn't an accident, though, the death might just be what is required to set off an uprising within the tribal areas of what is now Pakistan--an uprising that overstretched Britain can ill afford.

Sandilands, along with young millionairess Lily Coblenz, find themselves with the uncomfortable duty of discovering the truth, even if that truth might mean war. When the dead officer's successor challenges the official verdict, Lily finds herself a captive of the tribes and Joe must go undercover to discover the truth. But the real truth is something that goes back for years in a never-ending cycle of death and revenge that tears at the tribal border between India and Afghanistan.

Author Barbara Cleverly manages a strong and sympthetic story of the declining years of the British Empire where peace hangs in the balance and where honor and truth are easy sacrifices for expediency. Both Sandilands and Coblenz are sympathetically drawn and attractive characters with just a hint of sexual chemistry between them. But the strength of the story comes from Cleverly's descriptions of a lost India and the balance she brings to her view of the cycle of violence.

This is the first book I've read by Barbara Cleverly, but it certainly won't be the last. It is a well written and enjoyable historical treat.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent mystery., April 9, 2005

By 

L. J. Roberts (Oakland, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Damascened Blade: The Third Novel Featuring Detective Joe Sandilands (Joe Sandilands Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Although it helps to have read the first two books in the series to understand Joe, the other characters are interesting and well developed. She conveys a very tangible sense of place and there are twists and turns that keep you going to the very end. Set against a backdrop of English-occupied India in 1992, this is an excellent mystery, and one certain to be on my 2004 Top Ten list.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read!, October 29, 2004

By 

Bibliophile in the hills (Grass Valley, CA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Damascened Blade: The Third Novel Featuring Detective Joe Sandilands (Joe Sandilands Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Couldn't put this book down! Enjoyed the setting, the characters and the plot for this whodunit. Ms Cleverly plops you down in Raj India and away you go! Now reading "Ragtime in Simla" and it is very good too!