Shadow of the Moon is a pale shadow of M. M. Kaye's previous best seller, The Far Pavilions, a 1,000-page epic of 19th-century India (pronounced In-juh). Her writing was competent and professional, she conveyed the historical information painlessly, and if the plot and characters were coldly calculated to get the hero to all the important events, still it was a novel one could read with a clear conscience. The new book is again set in India, this time prior to the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, and we learn little new. Still, the familiar landscape might be enticing is only Kaye had bothered to come up with a new plot. (p. 56)

Kaye's reliance on mutual misunderstandings as a plot device in The Far Pavilions becomes fatal in Shadow of the Moon: the protagonists fall in love early on, but to keep the story rolling Kaye has to frustrate them. For...