The Damascened Blade (Joe Sandilands) - Tapa dura

The North-West Frontier, 1910. The screams of a wounded British officer abandoned in a ravine are heard by a young Scottish subaltern. Ignoring the command to retreat to base the Highlander sets out alone, dagger in hand, to save his fellow officer from the Pathan tribesmen who are slowly torturing him to death. But the bloody outcome of this rescue attempt is not what anybody could have predicted . . .
Over a dozen years later the backwash of the tragedy threatens to engulf Joe Sandilands. On a welcome break from his policing duties, Joe is spending a fortnight with his old army friend, James Lindsay, commander of the British army's fort at Gor Khatri on the Afghan border. 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 that results in the death of a Pathan prince and the taking of hostages, Joe and James are given seven days in which to arrest and execute the killer before the frontier erupts into war. Drawing on all his 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.

Barbara Cleverly was born in the north of England and is a graduate of Durham University. A former teacher, she has spent her working life in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk; she now lives in Cambridge. She has one son and five step-children.

Her Joe Sandilands series of books set against the background of the Indian Empire was inspired by the contents of a battered old tin trunk that she found in her attic. Out of it spilled two centuries of memories of a family - especially a great uncle who spent a lot of time in India - whose exploits and achievements marched in time with the flowering of the British Empire.

To find out more about the series, visit www.barbaracleverly.com.