India, 1943: In a regimental hill station, the ladies of Pankot struggle to preserve the genteel façade of British society amid the debris of a vanishing empire and World War II. A retired missionary, Barbara Batchelor, bears witness to the connections between many human dramas; the love between Daphne Manner and Hari Kumar; the desperate grief an old teacher feels for an India she cannot rescue; and the cruelty of Captain Ronald Merrick, Susan Layton's...

No set of novels so richly recreates the last days of India under British rule-"two nations locked in an imperial embrace"-as Paul Scott's historical tour de force, The Raj Quartet. The Jewel in the Crown opens in 1942 as the British fear both Japanese invasion and Indian demands for independence. On the night after the Indian Congress Party votes to support Ghandi, riots break out and an ambitious police sargeant arrests a young Indian for the alleged...

When Dr. Ravi Kapoor's cousin sets up a retirement home in India, Ravi's father-in-law is one of its first guests, but what the renovation lacks in promised amenities and luxury, it makes up for in adventure, stunning beauty, and unexpected love.

A classic account of the clash of cultures in British India after the turn of the century.

"India, 1837. William Avery is a young soldier with few prospects except rotting away in campaigns in India; Jeremiah Blake is a secret political agent gone native, a genius at languages and disguises, disenchanted with the whole ethos of British rule, but who cannot resist the challenge of an unresolved mystery. What starts as a wild goose chase for this unlikely pair--trying to track down a missing writer who lifts the lid on Calcutta society--becomes...