Title: The Rose of Tibet
Author: Lionel Davidson
Published: 1962
Publisher: Gollancz (UK) Harper & Row (US)
Genres: Adventure Fiction
Pages: 315
The Rose Of Tibet
He travelled from India to the forbidden land of Tibet. At Yamdring monastery, he discovers an emerald treasure, guarded by a woman with a deadly secret. But the Chinese army is coming.’Exciting … a perilous journey across Tibet in search of the missing brother.’Jack Kerridge, telegram
This changed when Houston’s brother’s crew went missing in India and arrived in Tibet and were eventually reported dead by Tibetan authorities. Their last stop was a remote monastery called Yamdring.
And so Houston (who is secretly convinced that his brother is still alive, Proof of death would mean financial security for the crew’s family and also wants to avoid choosing which girlfriend to go to for Christmas) agrees to go to India and search for proof.
Book Reviews of The Rose of Tibet:
He returns more than a year later, fabulously wealthy and missing an arm. The Tibetan Rose explains what happens in between. After a few weeks in India, Houston is convinced that the authorities won’t tell him anything and that he needs to cross into Tibet himself.
He hires a local guide named Ringling and sets off – with little idea of how difficult the journey will be. Davidson could certainly write a gruelling journey. Fatigue, altitude sickness, dodgy maps and components against Houston and Ringling as they leave India. It hit him like an ocean, a terrifying buffet of ice that instantly knocked him off his feet.
He wasn’t sure if he was on his back or in front of him, the blackness of the first moments so intense, the sea of pressure around him so solid that he seemed to be in another element.
He couldn’t breathe and the freezing stream rushing past his stuffy ears was like the sound of a trombone. Their reward is their arrival, which is a filthy and extremely smelly Shangri-La, but at least somewhere they can stop walking.
