Imagine a corporation so powerful that it rules trade across the globe, fuels the first truly world war, creates governments and even gives birth to new countries . The year is 1746, and the corporation is the East India Company. The War of the Austrian Succession has been blazing for six years. In India, Warring French and British trade interests are fighting for control of the decaying Moghul empire. Into this maelstrom steps trader’s son, Hayden Flint, and Company clerk, Robert Clive. Love and war on a spectacular scale. A magnificent blend of historical adventure and romance “in the great tradition of James Clavell.”
“Talwar” is a novel set against the history-making events of those early days, entwined with the mystery surrounding one of the world’s greatest jewels, the Koh-i-Noor diamond.
Much has been written about the end of the British Raj in India, but how did British influence there start? In fact, the Raj — direct rule by the British crown — only began in the mid-19th Century. During the hundred years before that, various parts of India were annexed and administered by the East India Company which filled a power vacuum created by the collapse of the Moghul empire.
War came to the trading ports of the Bay of Bengal, alliances were formed with various local leaders and conflict was carried inexorably into the interior. One of the foremost names associated with the Anglo-French disputes in India at this time was Robert Clive, who did much to prevent India from becoming French. Clive went out to India as a humble clerk, and the story of his transformation into the most successful soldier of his time is astonishing.
Clive was a driven individual and a would-be suicide. He was certainly not a paradigm of selflessness. As a young man, he worked as a clerk for the East India Company. Fortunately, for him, war broke out – otherwise he would have died young and poor. War gives people an opportunity to excel and there are many examples of people who are good at war and make a name for themselves. Clive was the right man at the right place and the right time. He was probably not a particularly nice person and might have been a gang leader in another world, but he was a great figure in military history not a faultless messiah and he did what he was good at.
The Flint family are fiction but there would have been plenty of people around engaged in doing the same kind of things that I have them doing in Talwar. All the Moghuls, on the other hand, are real, as are all the battles, and all the political machinations described in the novel are as close as possible to what actually happened. Anyone so minded can track down the various facets of my work and find the origins and primary source material that I used to construct the narrative.
Thematically, Talwar explores the clash between pre- and post-Enlightenment modes of thought. Beyond that, is there a message for today in the book? Yes. I believe that the “then” illuminates the “now”, and that those who remain unaware of our history are like people who have no memory. They are doomed to repeat their mistakes. Also, it’s good to correct simple-minded misconceptions about how British control of the Indian subcontinent arose, and why.
I want my readers to enjoy their visit to the past. If a story of love and war against a backdrop of the history appeals to you, if you want to see how people meet circumstances beyond their control and, by their actions, fashion the turning points of history, then come along. When you finish reading every one of my books I want you to feel that you have visited a place you’d like to return to.
Moghul
Based on real people (ca. 1620), THE MOGHUL begins in a rip-roaring sea battle north of Bombay in which the vastly out-gunned adventurer, Brian Hawksworth, ship’s captain and emissary of King James, blows away a flotilla of Portuguese galleons to gain access to an Indian port. He’s come to open trade for “barbaric” England and squeeze out the Portuguese, who try to kill him at every turn. But once on land, he’s captive: the beauty and romance of the exquisite Moghul Empire seduce him from his material goals to a new quest – of supreme sensuality in music, visions, and sacred lovemaking.
India, ruled by the son of great Akbar, is about to pass to one of his sons. Hawksworth must choose sides, but will he choose right? The future of England, and of India, depend on it. Assailed by intrigue and assassination, tormented by a forbidden love, enthralled by a mystic poet, Hawksworth engages war elephants, tiger hunts, the harem of the Red Fort of Agra, the Rajput warriors at Udaipur, becomes intimate champion to Shah Jahan, (builder of the Taj Mahal), and, in his supreme test, plays the sitar with a touch that elicits from the great Shah – “Finally, my English friend – you understand.”
Silk Route: 7,000 Miles of History
With lavish illustrations and a highly informative text, The Silk Route traces the early history of the silk trade-from the mulberry groves of China to the marketplace in Byzantium-and explores how two of the world’s greatest empires were brought together, forever opening the channels of commerce between East and West.
