The Day of the Scorpion
First edition
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| Author | Paul Scott |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical novel |
| Publisher | Heinemann |
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Publication date
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September 1968 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 496 p. (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | (hardback edition) |
| OCLC | 466171 |
| LC Class | PZ4.S428 Day PR6069.C596 |
| Preceded by | The Jewel in the Crown |
| Followed by | The Towers of Silence |
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 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 in 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. Pankot is a "second class" hill station in the province which serves as a headquarters for the 1st Pankot Rifles, a regiment of the Indian Army, who fought the Axis in North Africa. During the cool season, the regiment moves to Ranpur, on the plains. At Premanagar there is an old fortification that is used by the British as a prison. Another town, Muzzafirabad, is the headquarters of the Muzzafirabad ("Muzzy") Guides, another Indian Army regiment. Sundernagar is a "backwater town" in the province. Another hill station is in the Nanoora Hills.
In this novel an old Raj family comes newly on the scene, the Laytons of Pankot, an imaginary hill station in India. Now an army captain, Ronald Merrick, a self-made man of the lower middle class and the former police official in charge of the Daphne Manners case, begins to insinuate himself subtly into the Layton family. We learn what the Laytons do not know, that in a searing session with the incarcerated Hari Kumar, Merrick tortured and molested him.
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