Interesting twists, as usual. We learn a little more about Tossa, too. People in disguise, sneaky tricks of all sorts - but the oddest thing is how many people immediately feel themselves responsible for Anjli, while she feels quite responsible for herself. And a bit more of the proper care and feeding of the adolescent psyche. I remembered bits, enough not to trust what people said but not enough to know what they really meant. The story of the Buddha was interesting too, though what became of Anjli's father echoed more for me with Kipling. As usual fun to read, but not one of my favorites. ( )

Dominic Felse, and his girlfriend Tossa, had planned to spend Christmas with his folks, but her filmstar mother Chloe has other ideas, and so instead they find themselves roped in to chaperone the 14-year-old daughter of her wealthy friend to India to join her ex-husband, the child's father. With all expenses paid, it should be the trip of a lifetime, but when they arrive in Delhi, they find that Anjli's father's been missing for more than a year, and her grandmother is on her deathbed. Then, just as they are making plans to return home with her, Anjli disappears too...

Written in 1969, there are no computers or mobile phones to aid in instant communication, and Dorette's letter to her ex announcing that she's sending his daughter to live with him lies unopened and unread. With Mr Kumar missing, his mother dead, and an old man murdered when Anjli was apparently taken, Dominic & Tossa don't know who they can trust other than Ernest Felder, a film-director friend of Doretta's who'd met them on their arrival.

Delhi is richly described, but we learn comparatively little of the main characters themselves other than their relationships to one another. Mourning Raga is one of a series of mysteries involving Dominic Felse, and earlier his father George, starting I believe with "Fallen into the Pit" (1951), and apparently, "The Piper on the Mountain" (1966) tells of Dominic's first encounter with Tossa. ( )