Bøger af Stuart Blackburn

Luck of the Draw is a thriller laced with radical politics, divided loyalties, and personal tragedies. Ultimately, it is a story of love, loss, and survival.

DescriptionThe Madras Presidency, 1911. It is 10:35 a.m., the appointed hour. A boy barely intomanhood, a British officer for the Crown, and a loaded pistol will create a moment inhistory, the echoes of which are still faintly heard today.Vanchinathan, a young boy from a poor Tamil family living in Shenkottai,at the foothills of the western ghats, defies his family and goes far away toattend college. Carried away in the rising tide of anger against colonial rule,he finds himself drawn to one of the militant traditionalist groups opposedto the British Raj. He is recruited, trained to be an assassin and tasked with asecret mission: he must kill Robert Ashe, a British officer who has earned theire of Vanchi''s mentors by suppressing a riot and jailing its leader. Buffeted byself-doubt and ideological misgivings, Vanchi finds himself on a knife-edge. AsAshe''s luxury train waits at an isolated station, will Vanchi raise his gun andshoot?Drawing upon a true story, Stuart Blackburn weaves together history, legendand narratives from South India''s colonial past to deliver a gripping yetnuanced novel.

Shenkottai, a small town in south India. Defying his father Vanchi attends college, where he is introduced to radical politics. Robert Ashe, a British officer, is posted near Shenkottai. As Ashe's luxury train waits at an isolated station, will Vanchi raise his gun and shoot for Indian independence?

Taking the reader inside a little-known form of shadow puppetry, this work describes the performance of the Tamil version of the Ramayana epic. It describes the skill and stamina of the puppeteers in Kerala, as they perform all night for as many as ten weeks during the festival season.