The Mutiny - Tapa dura

** 'Harrowing but magnetic ... With his customary rigour, Rathbone marshals extensive research to create the framework of his epic drama. Against this background he weaves the threads of smaller stories, intimate and personal accounts of individual tragedies ... Larger even than the conflict itself is India, elegantly and luminously brought to life in the consistently scintillating prose of this novel of real accomplishment (THE TIMES)

** 'Rathbone sets himself an ambitious challenge in THE MUTINY but he succeeds brilliantly in re-creating the chaos, the savagery and the clash of cultures in India in 1857. The stories of his own characters ... are all woven seamlessly into the wider narra (SUNDAY TIMES)

** 'Although the story of the mutiny has been told many times, it is fascinating to revisit it in such intelligent company ... ambitious, sweeping ... The British, with their quaint slang, and casual, unthinking racism, are very convincingly drawn. Rathbone also elicits great sympathy for the Indian mutineers, with their complex, often contradictory, motives (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH)

** 'Enjoyable and exciting to read ... Rathbone reveals himself to be a novelist of skill, compassion and imagination (TLS)