A Ripping Yarn with a Few Loose Threads

Stephen Alter crafts a masterful story by resurrecting Kipling's Kim and his last daring adventure in British India

- RAVI SHANKAR

Most writers, even excellent writers, know Lhow to start a book.

Often, even the best of them don't know how to end it. Pulling off a jolly good tale that doesn't sag in the middle like a baniya in tales of the Raj is as challenging as young Kim's journey to the Himalayas in the Great Game to ferret out Russian spies. Stephen Alter's The Greatest Game is his story of Kimball 'O Hara, now in his sixties on his last undercover mission as India's tryst with destiny waits around the corner.

In the shadows a cabal, for whom the empire is a fascist-racist trope, plots assassinations to sabotage Independence. Kim is sent off to Delhi where a murderous conspiracy awaits him while new India faces a stillborn's fate.

"I suppose you can't tell me what mischief you were up to, Kim?" she (Kim's friend Princess Anastasia) asks.

"I was saving India," I reply.