The Day of the Scorpion

The Day of the Scorpion is the 1968 novel by Paul Scott, the second in his Raj Quartet. The novel is set in British India of the 1940s. it follows on the from the storyline in the The Jewel in the Crown. Much of the novel is written in the form of interviews and reports of conversations and research from the point of view of a narrator. Other portions are in the form of letters from one character to another or entries in their diaries. The story is set in the period 1942-1944 in several locations throughout India, particularly in a northern province. The province shares characteristics with... Punjab and the United Provinces. The names of places and people suggest a connection to Bengal; however, the physical characteristics place the setting in north-central India, rather than in northeast India. The province has an agricultural plain and, in the north, a mountainous region. The capital of the province is Ranpur. Another large city in the province is Mayapore, which was the key setting in The Jewel in the Crown. The princely state of Mirat is a nominally sovereign enclave within the province.
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