The towers of silence - Paul Scott

As WWII sweeps convulsively into its last bitter stage, the English wives, daughters, mothers and widows of officers embroiled in the ongoing conflict gather in the Indian hill station of Pankot, a microcosm of English society, rigid with the sense of duty and brittle with awareness of class. Meanwhile Captain Merrick and the British military vainly struggle to uphold the myth of British invincibility in the face of irreversible change. And Mabel Layton, doyenne of Pankot society, shaken in her belief in the old order of things, retreats altogether to the tranquillity of her rose garden and her inner vision of India. Once more Scott excels, showign both the humour and pathos of the last of days of the Raj. He is a writer of enormous wit and compassion.