One Last Look (2003)

Moore's first novel since ''In the Cut,'' that propulsive and kinky 1995 horror story, is a wan and decorous period piece set mostly in India between 1836 and 1843. Eleanor, the bookish sister of the recently appointed British governor general, details their tropical sojourn in a series of ladylike, pretty, and lyrical diary entries. But lushly described landscape and coyly revealed Victorian sexual eccentricities (including Eleanor's habit of looking at dirty pictures while being fondled by her brother) don't quite overcome the absence of anything resembling a plot.