Book 2 of the Raj Quartet There are a couple of phrases that I would bet the author, Paul Scott, has never had occasion to use: 'to cut a long story short.....' and 'let me cut to the chase....' Never one to keep an answer to a question to a few short lines when three pages will do, and it seems every character in the book has the capacity to talk at length on any given topic. No thought is spared consideration and everyone is an amateur psychiatrist. However, it somehow works and I was captivated for another 530 pages. The book is set in India in 1942 in the immediate aftermath of the events described in The Jewel in the Crown. A young English woman, Daphne Manners, was raped by a gang of men on the night of a civil uprising, and by the start of Book 2, a group of young men have been arrested and sent to prison without trial. The arrested men included Hari Kumar, who had been in a relationship with Miss Manners but she has persuaded him to say nothi...