(Doubleday, 1983)

Reviewers called it the best novel on India since Kipling. An immediate European bestseller, optioned by Indian/German producers who commissioned a six-hour mini-series, then Canadian producers with BBC.

Based on real people (ca. 1620) – an English “sea dog” shoots his way through Portuguese gallons and into an Indian port to open trade. Once on land, there’re tiger hunts, war elephants, sensual music, drugs, and sacred lovemaking.

THE MOGHUL was immediately a European bestseller, optioned by Indian producers who commissioned a six-hour mini-series, then Canadian producers with the BBC.
Based on real people (ca. 1620) – THE MOGHUL begins in a rip-roaring sea battle north of Bombay in which the vastly out-gunned adventurer, Brian Hawksworth, ship's captain and emissary of King James, blows away a flotilla of Portuguese galleons to gain access to an Indian port. He's come to open trade for “barbaric” England and squeeze out the Portuguese, who try to kill him at every turn. But once on land, he’s captive: the beauty and romance of the exquisite Moghul Empire seduce him from his material goals to a new quest – of supreme sensuality in music, visions, and sacred lovemaking.
India, ruled by the son of great Akbar, is about to pass to one of his sons. Hawksworth must choose sides, but will he choose right? The future of England, and of India, depend on it. Assailed by intrigue and assassination, tormented by a forbidden love, enthralled by a mystic poet, Hawksworth engages war elephants, tiger hunts, the harem of the Red Fort of Agra, the Rajput warriors at Udaipur, becomes intimate champion to Shah Jahan, (builder of the Taj Mahal), and, in his supreme test, plays the sitar with a touch that elicits from the great Shah – “Finally, my English friend – you understand.”
Reviews

A SWEEPING ADVENTURE THAT SWEPT THE CRITICS!
"IF YOU ENJOYED THE FAR PAVILIONS OR SHO-GUN, YOU SHOULD OBTAIN THOMAS HOOVER'S NEW NOVEL ABOUT INDIA . . . ROBUST . . . ROUS¬ING ... ROLLICKING ADVENTURE . . . JUST ABOUT PERFECT'
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"HIGH ACTION . . . SPRAWLING"
—San Diego Union
"THOMAS HOOVER CAPTURES THE SOUNDS AND SMELLS AND ATMOSPHERE OF THE TIME, FROM THE MYSTERIESOFTHE HAREM TOTHE BATTLES BETWEEN MASSED ELEPHANTS"
—Milwaukee Journal
"ROUSING"
—Publishers Weekly
"GOOD ENTERTAINMENT ... I WOULD NOT HESI¬TATE TO RECOMMEND THE MOGHUL TO ANY¬ONE WHO ENJOYS ROBUST HISTORICAL ADVEN¬TURE AND ROMANCE"
— Omaha World-Herald
"PLENTY OF ACTION . . . FASCINATING ... A VIV¬IDLY TOLD TALE"
-- Wichita Falls Times

Tags: Moghul, India, Shah Jahan, British India, Taj Mahal, Portuguese India, India History, Agra, Raj, Seventeenth-Century India