Five stars for the whole quartet.

The last of the Raj Quartet books and so moving. I can’t recommend the series more. It can read almost like non-fiction at times but with such indelible characters. Sarah Layton, the practical heroine. Ronald Merrick, the most upright villain, the Count, the Kasim family, India, India. They are unforgettable.

The final of the quartet. I enjoyed the collective quite a bit. It finished with a fitting denouement, and - as always with these grand epics of sweeping global events - nobody is happy!

The last book in the quartet. The series is very long, very repetitious. (If you want a streamlined version, watch the PBS miniseries entitled The Jewel in the Crown.) All in all, it is an excellent study of the final days of the British Raj. But, this is not light reading. And there is not a single happy moment in the entire quartet. Not one.

Each of the four Raj Quartet novels has been unique and wonderful - surprising, seeing as they tell the same central story from different angles. The addition of Guy Peron in this novel brings in a wonderful character to pick apart the tormentor Merrick, who has prowled all four novels, bringing misery with him.
The way we finally get to understand Sarah in this book is also a thing of joy - a masterful and nuanced portrayal of a female character. She, of all the people in these books, has stayed with me - particularly at the end, where she chooses to make a path for herself, rather than chase any promise of love with Guy.
Books to come back to again and again.

All RIGHT. After the third book, which was a bit of a disappointment and which sent me off into a reading crisis of epic proportions, A Division of Spoils was not only a welcome return to the quality of writing and plotting that I had come to expect of Scott, but it was also a bit like I read the last one and then I brushed my teeth and everything's fine now. More than fine. The plot finally moves on past the events that made up two books in a row, Barbie Batchelor's dead, and Guy Perron, most awesome character ever, shows up.
It's clear to see what purpose he serves in the book. He's the stand-in for the reader. He is white, middle class, and liberal (as are, I imagine, most of the readers of these books) and not only does he call bluff on the crazy crap Ronald Merrick represents, he kind of falls for Sarah Layton. All within the first hundred pages. His reader stand-in status means that he summarizes everything we know so far, and he has conversations with other characters that flesh out that information to new and sometimes alarming degrees. Which was helpful, because the amount of information spewed out in this book has got to rival all the information from the previous books combined.
Favorite Scenes:
1) The last bit on the train. I almost cried. And there went The Indian Character.
2) Perron's appearance in that very, very long evening: from his meeting with Purvis to the party to his meeting Merrick and Sarah Layton to the attempt to save Purvis to the meeting with Colonel Layton to Merrick's threat to have him transferred. All excellent.
3) Susan wondering where the arm went. For such a crazy and irritating character, I actually felt for her in that scene, and through her I felt a bit for Merrick too. To which I have to say, Paul Scott, you spin me round like a record baby.

I did not find this book as compelling as I found the other three books in the series. But -- full disclosure -- reading the other reviews of it I wonder whether the problem was the book or my own stress about the impending presidential election. I suspect it was the latter.