Book one of the Raj Quartet This is a novel that you have to commit to concentrating on because the level of detail is outstanding and every word counts. It's over five hundred pages of finely typed print, so that high level of concentration has to be sustained over quite a few days. I usually read a book in a week, but it took me two to read this one and it is just one of the four books that make up the Raj Quartet. It's set in India, 1942, which is right in the middle of the Second World War, and the country has been unsettled by the continued occupation by the British, and the idea of self-rule is gaining supporters. The police and military are struggling to keep control of the population and British people are setting up contingency plans to establish places of safety in the event of an uprising. In late summer when the heavy rains began, two events happened in Mayapore that shook the British to their core. The population had been gathering in numbers a...