The Rose of Tibet

Lionel Davidson

Jun 2009 · Faber & Faber

About this ebook

The Rose of Tibet (1962) was Lionel Davidson's second novel, an extraordinary and thrilling tale of a haunted land which prompted Graham Greene to remark: 'I hadn't realised how much I had missed the genuine adventure story until I read The Rose of Tibet.' Its combination of adventure and travelogue serves further proof of Davidson's great variety as a writer. Daphne du Maurier thought it offered 'all the excitement of King Solomon's Mines.'

Hugh Whittington has gone missing - reported dead while filming near Mount Everest. Determined to find him, his brother Charles embarks on a perilous and illegal journey from India into the forbidden land of Tibet, all the way to the monastery of Yamdring. There awaits a woman with a deadly and ghostly secret, an emerald treasure to guard and the invading Chinese Red Army.

About the author

Lionel Davidson was born in 1922 in Hull, Yorkshire. He left school early and worked as a reporter before serving in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. His first novel, The Night of Wenceslas, was published in 1960 to great critical acclaim and drew comparisons to Graham Greene and John le Carr. It was followed by The Rose of Tibet (1962), A Long Way to Shiloh (1966), The Chelsea Murders (1978) and Kolymsky Heights (1994). He was thrice the recipient of the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award and, in 2001, was awarded the CWA's Cartier Diamond Dagger lifetime achievement award. He died in 2009.