Book description
By the time Jim Gilruth returns to Pakistan, twenty years after he
served as a law officer in a small village near Lahore, colonial rule
has given way to Pakistani officialdom. His strange and enigmatic
mission is painfully involved in the brutal clash of the old and the new
- but why has he been chosen as the instrument of coercion? Then the
details of a half-forgotten murder that he had long ago adjudicated
begin to come back in all their bewildering nuances, and Gilruth, in an
eerie repetition of the circumstances of a generation ago, is powerless
to save the life of a good man, or bring a murderer to justice.
Praised by critics for his clean prose style, characterization, and the
strong sense of place in his novels, Philip Maitland Hubbard was born in
Reading, in Berkshire and brought up in Guernsey, in the Channel
Islands. He was educated at Oxford, where he won the Newdigate Prize for
English verse in 1933. From 1934 until its disbandment in 1947 he served
with the Indian Civil service. On his return to England he worked for
the British Council, eventually retiring to work as a freelance writer.
He contributed to a number of publications, including Punch, and wrote
16 novels for adults as well as two children's books. He lived in Dorset
and Scotland, and many of his novels draw on his interest in and
knowledge of rural pursuits and folk religion.
