One of Clive's Heroes: A Story of the Fight for India

In the autumn of 1754, a young boy named Desmond Burke watches a country cart rattle into the market town of Market Drayton, where something is happening in the streets. The townsfolk have gathered in force, and the buzz of excitement carries across Shropshire. What Desmond doesn't yet know is that Robert Clive, the legendary soldier whose adventures in the East Indies have become the stuff of legend, has returned to England in triumph. For Desmond, trapped on a farm under the shadow of his domineering older brother Richard, Clive represents everything his life is not: danger, glory, purpose. When a mysterious stranger named Marmaduke Diggle appears speaking of the wonders and riches of the East Indies, Desmond's imagination catches fire. The path from Shropshire fields to the courts of Indian princes stretches before him, but getting there will require a kind of courage he doesn't yet know he possesses. This is a story of a boy who refuses to accept a small life, who looks at the crimson sunset and sees not an ending but a direction.