In the Palace of the Khans

Description

In a far-off kingdom, an English boy befriends the mad ruler's daughter The Khan of Dirzhan is a monster. Nigel, the son of the English ambassador to a backward Asian country, is transfixed by stories of the Khan's brutality. It is said that he had his own brother strangled, that he once shot two cabinet ministers to death during a government meeting, and that he will stop at nothing to keep his daughter safe. At first, these are nothing but stories, but when Nigel and the Khan's daughter form an unlikely friendship, the terror of the Khan will become all too real. Enlisted by the Khan to help beautiful young Taeela with her English, Nigel gets a firsthand look at life in a palace ruled by fear. When the Khan's enemies threaten Taeela, Nigel helps her escape. Together, they flee across a barren countryside where sheer survival is an adventure.

Peter Dickinson was born in Africa but raised and educated in England. From 1952 to 1969 he was on the editorial staff of Punch, and since then earned his living writing fiction of various kinds for children and adults. His books have been published in several languages throughout the world. The author of twenty-one crime and mystery novels for adults, Dickinson was the first to win the Gold Dagger Award of the Crime Writers' Association for two books running: The Glass-Sided Ants Nest (1968) and The Old English Peepshow (1969). Dickinson was shortlisted nine times for the prestigious Carnegie Medal for children's literature and was the first author to win it twice. Dickinson served as chairman of the Society of Authors and was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009 for services to literature. Peter Dickinson died on December 16, 2015, at the age of eighty-eight.

"One of the real masters of children's literature." -Philip Pullman "Peter Dickinson is a national treasure." -Independent "[A] master storyteller." -School Library Journal