Kim takes on a wandering picareque through late 19th century Colonial India. Kim is the orphaned son of an Irish soldier, a charismatic and daring boy of the bazaar who can make himself instantly at home in any of the myriad communities that make up India. Kim falls in with Tibetan Lama searching for the River of the Arrow, a mystical stream that cleanses sin, and finds his own destiny, as a secret errand for a Pathan horse-dealer conveys vital intelligence in the Great Power struggle against Russia. Kim is recruited into the India secret intelligence service as a bit player in the Great Game, where he uses his natural abilities to foil a pair of Russian agents in the Himalayas.

This book is at its best in its sincere appreciation of polyglot and polyvalent 19th century India, a land of million distinct castes and professions, ancient traditions existing uneasily next to railroads and European-style administration. Kipling, for all he's cast as brutal imperialist, has a sincere appreciation for the worth of all the people of colonial India, and the vivid lives of the local. Their
faiths, their jokes, their back-and-forth over profane priests, begged meals, charms, business and travel, is all appreciated much more than the deadly machinations of the spies and chiefs of bureaus. I enjoyed the Buddhist framing provided by the Lama, as the most important character next to Kim.

That said, the writing is wearing, a rolling river of phrases that flash colors without capturing a picture. A few scenes with actual tension rise above a plotting that is basically a ramble.