I wrote a post about the sino-indian border war a while ago over here that might be interesting for you. I also had difficulties finding reliable sources (as can happen with modern Indian history), but this one includes two current books, a monograph and an edited volume that I found very good. Hope this helps!

A recent book that looks at US perspective on this subject is JFK's Forgotten Crisis, by Bruce Riedel. It views things primarily through the lens of how it was handled by the United States, but it has a wealth of good information and citations that you can look through to find further research as well, and it does a great job at giving an overview of the war itself and the lead-up to it.