The Jewel in the Crown is a 1966 novel by Paul Scott that begins his Paradise Quartet. The Quartet novel sequence in four volumes is set in the last days of British rule in India during World War II.
Private investigator Jessica Shaw is used to anonymous tips, but she is taken aback when a tip about the kidnapping of a three-year-old girl from 25 years ago includes a photo in which she recognizes herself.
The central character of this novel is Anna, a woman with three children and a writer husband, obsessively preoccupied with writing a book about the Czech storyteller Bohumil Hrabal.
Twelve men in generational succession represent the main characters of this magnificent family saga that spans the last three hundred years of Hungarian history.