Despite the promise in Mundy reassembling some of his best characters, Ramsden, Jimgrim, Singh, King, and Joan Angela Leich, The Hundred Days soon goes stale as a novel of abductions and chases. It does manage to redeem itself, however, towards the end, in the last two or three chapters, with some of the most intense and brutal passages of action available in interwar adventure fiction.

Then, there is the setting, the North-West Frontier of the British Raj. Here, Mundy is superb. And if the plot lags, the descriptions of this barren, windswept region of mountains, gorges, and ravines do not let you down. Whether in the searing bright sunlight or moonlit nights, Mundy captures an atmosphere that is enrapturing. So are the people that populate the area, the Pathans and Waziris. Mundy describes them as violent, brutal tribesmen who are quick to anger and not easily controlled. Barbarians and savages. Yet he likes them, and they are treated with not only sympathy but respect for a their different code of honor and life. This is one of the aspects of his writing that greatly separates Mundy from his peers. He tries to see the tribesmen through their eyes as well as from the perspective of the European or American.

A moderately successful novel. Ramsden takes the lead, again, and, of course, that means mostly action. And by this time in the series, it has become almost bizarre to see Jimgrim all but disappear into the background. ( )