Best known for The Four Feathers and the Hanaud detective novels, A.E.W. Mason wrote many novels. The Drum is an adventure novel by this British writer which was first published in 1937. This story is a rousing, Kipling-like adventure set in contemporary India, dealing with uprising and rebellion and a native prince caught between two worlds and forced into hiding. In it, murder and intrigue in a princely state on the Northwest Frontier of British India. A fairy drum no one must see beaten. A secret mission across the Hindu Kush and friendship between an Indian Prince and an English drummer-boy. All these are elements of The Drum which is one of two novels by A.E.W. Mason set in India. A pukka adventure in the days of the Raj.