by Rumer Godden
The scene is post-Kipling India in the 1930s while the British are still very much in control. Godden, who wrote so movingly about British nuns in an exotic land in Black Narcissus, uses a convent in Calcutta as a focal point for this story about a racehorse named Dark Invader. The book has everything: an honorable hero thrown out of the army because he married a Eurasian, a mother superior to whom he is attracted, an eccentric horse owner, a cruel jockey and—at the end—the race for the Viceroy's Cup. The English-born Godden, 74, is an accomplished storyteller, and her characters are delightful. (Viking, $11.95)
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