Judith Cooper

The Blue Diamond Judith Cooper

The short prologue becomes the end of the story when Roger marries Madeline with Algernon Karrendski as best man. Their gift to him is a blue diamond tie pin. The story starts in India in the early 1920s, with the marriage of a very young Indian woman, and the tales of her early life as a rani (queen) and the tragedies that befell her.

During the war when British visitors stayed at the palace, one is an officer named Karrendski whose family are jewellers in London, and another is a Doctor Muir. When polio sweeps the palace, the doctor stays to assist. Many people die including the raja, the rani's husband, their only son and his family--except for her one, surviving little grandson who becomes the hero of this book.