A great gift by the authors and by Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, in the form of an extended interview and background papers and reports from and to the Viceroy, chronicling the hectic months before the transfer of power to the two independent countries India and Pakistan on 15 August 1947. Many questions that still exercise our minds will find an authentic answer here, not the least whether Mountbatten was solely guilty of precipitating the partitiion ( a resounding no). ( )