Raj quartet

Contains "The Jewel in the Crown" in which a young Englishwoman, Daphne Manners, and an Indian man, Hari Kumar, are involved in a doomed love affair; and "The Day of the Scorpion" in which a sadistic policeman, Ronald Merrick, who arrested and persecuted Hari, insinuates himself into an aristocratic British family as World War II escalates.

Set against the backdrop of Gandhis calls for independence and a potential Japanese invasion, four masterful historical novels--The Jewel in the Crown, The Day of the Scorpion, The Towers of Silence, and A Division of the Spoils--covering the period between the Quit India riots of 1942 and the massacres that accompanied independence and partition in 1947 provide insight into the closing years of British rule in India.