Where the Rainbow Ends

Compulsively readable, beautifully crafted, this novel, by the author of The Killing Fields, is both a gripping war story and a splendid evocation of the waning glories of British colonialism. In the autumn of 1941, Guy Tancred, a young, somewhat priggish investment advisor, is sent from the London office of Dunlop Orient to Ceylon to oversee and protect the company's rubber plantations, one of which is owned by his older brother. Soon it is Guy himself who appears to be in need of protection. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and capture Singapore, he becomes embroiled in anti-espionage activities, conceives a hopeless passion for his brother's wife and bears witness to the bombing of the island itselfan act that is to hasten the end of British dominance in the region. While its cast of characters may seem overly familiar to readers of ""Empire'' literature, Ceylon, a place that Ovid called ``the last outpost of the civilized world'' is memorably portrayed. (July 15)