When Brigadier General Reginald Dyer went to Amritsar in April 1919, he was going to bring the troublesome city to heel, no matter what the cost. His boss, the lieutenant governor, Sir Michael O'Dwyer, had become increasingly alarmed at the effect Gandhi was having on his province. Not only had there been a surge in demonstrations and strikes, but Hindus and Muslims were showing unprecedented levels of unity. What happened next shocked the world. On the evening of April 13, Dyer marched his soldiers to a crowded walled garden at the city's heart. Without issuing orders to disperse, he blocked the exit with his armored cars and commanded his men to open fire on twenty thousand unarmed men, women, and children. According to legend, nineteen-year-old Sikh orphan Udham Singh was injured in that attack and, surrounded by the dead and the dying, picked up a handful of blood-soaked earth, smeared it across his forehead, and vowed to kill the men responsible. The truth, as the author has discovered, is more complex and more dramatic. Award-winning journalist Anita Anand traces Singh's subsequent two decades of travel and preparation through Africa, the United States, and Europe until, in March 1940, he finally finds himself in London, standing, gun in hand, in front of O'Dwyer himself. Book jacket.