Anglo-Indian like herself. Rodney Savage recognises that he is losing out to his social and intellectual inferior, but realises that he is powerless to prevent it. Patrick for his part begins to realise that, in the new India, his children might have a chance of becoming anyone they want to, rather than having to stick to the Anglo-Indians' traditional role of working on the railways. Themes The central theme of the novel, epitomised by Victoria's own dilemma between her competing suitors, is the conflicting pressures upon the mixed-race Anglo-Indian community as Independence approaches, not confident of "fitting in" either in a Britain most of them have never seen, or in an independent India. Another important theme in the novel is the significance of the developing Cold War tensions on a post-independence India. The British are resigned to leaving the country, but are desperate to have an influence on India's future, specifically by averting the threat of a Communist takeover. The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny had been a stark reminder of Communist mutinies in the October Revolution and in post-World War I Germany. Throughout the book the British are shown striving to support and sustain the Congress Party and its leader Mahatma Gandhi, who for so long they had been opposed to. In one passage the British character Rodney Savage reflects upon the irony of his being charged with protecting Gandhi against a terrorist assassination attempt. According to Masters, writing in the Glossary to his earlier novel, Nightrunners of Bengal, Bhowani is an "imaginary town. To get a geographical bearing on the story it should be imagined to be about where Jhansi really is - 25.27 N., 78.33 E." Series The book is one of a series of historical novels written by John Masters, set in India and involving several generations of the fictional Savage family. It has particular connections to Nightrunners of Bengal, the first novel Masters wrote in the series (though not the earliest in terms of its historical setting), which dealt with the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Both novels were set in Bhowani and its environs. Some locations, such as the Tree of the Silver Guru, appear in both novels (although the railway, which has a major role in Bhowani Junction, was in the earlier book a metalled road). In both books the protagonist is named Rodney Savage, and the WWII colonel is the direct descendant, almost a