Rung Ho! Paperback – 3 Nov 2006

During the Sepoy mutiny, a young British officer on his first overseas assignment gets involved in the feud between two Maharajahs.RUNG HO! is fairly typical British Raj rah-rah stuff, but Mundy is already revealing himself to be a natural storyteller, and anyone who likes things like THE FOUR FEATHERS or BEAU GESTE would be hard pressed not to like this as well. The story is very contrived and routine, but its enjoyable to go on Mundy's ride for the most part. He obviously knew India, at least certain segments of India, and brings that world vividly to life. He sketches his characters economically and broadly but they do stand out on the page. He shifts pov often but manages to keep the story going, not always an easy thing to do, and even his more incidental characters get to do interesting or amusing things. (One of the secrets of a natural storyteller -- and Mundy had this gift -- is to tell stories within stories, little setups/payoffs embedded within the larger narrative.) Mundy also has a strong narrative voice, a wise, sometimes critical observer of the action, and that helps tremendously in these sorts of things as well.Knocked a star off partly for some awkward narrative contrivances in setting up the climax (a certain character at one point has to behave dumber than is plausible, then directly afterwards has to be braver than is plausible. Mundy tries to buttress this, so he obviously saw it as a weak spot himself, but I don't think he handwaves it away completely) and partly for a heavy-handed overreliance on "keeping one's word" as a unadulterated good *at* the climax, which I do buy in some respects but seems out of kilter with the psychology of the characters as presented. In short, here and there Mundy leans on the contrivances a bit much, and if you read this you'll pick up on it yourself.Still, for an early novel very enjoyable.