SADHU ON THE MOUNTAIN PEAK - An Ogilvie novel by MacNeil, Duncan

New York: St. Martin's Press, 1974, first US edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 5 1/2 x 7 1/2, VG/VG CONDITION ( very light dj edge wear ), 286 pages................................................. 3rd book in the series. ....`We British, Dornoch - we don't spy. We-er-use Political Officers . .Bloody Francis Fettleworth, divisional commander at Peshawar knew only too well what a brittle thing the Pax Britannica had become on the North-West Frontier, where his garrison was the last outpost of the Raj facing the Khyber Pass and the rugged Afghan hills. And it was in these hills that trouble was being fermented on perhaps an unprecedented scale. The attack would be united under a Pathan warrior, Nashkar Ali Khan. It would be touched off by the word of the sadhu, a holy man awaiting the sign of Mahomet to mobilize an army which could sweep down and annihilate Peshawar as a first step to driving the British out of the sub-continent..................................................................... But if a political officer could be suitably infiltrated, what dangers might not be averted? Being a spy is a new trade for James Ogilvie, now a captain in the 114th Highlanders, the Queen's Own Royal Strathspeys. But disguised as an arms seller, and accompanied by the ebullient Mr. Jones of Brum, he sets out across the Indus to woo his way into the confidence of the Pathan leaders with Gatling parts, Colts, Mausers and promises.He finds a highland world of mounting tension and expectancy. He finds, too, an unexpected, if equivocal, ally, and when his back is to the wall he finds that he must involve the woman he loves if he is to save not so much his own skin as the whole future of the British Raj.