toiling upward in the night

In case you were worried, Sebastian Clifton did not die in that horrible car crash. Since it’s the early sixties, there are no cell phones, so Don Pedro Martinez cannot stop the hit on Sebastian when he learns that his youngest son Bruno is in the car. The inevitable happens, and while Sebastian is seriously injured, it was Bruno who perished. Now old Don Pedro is really pissed. If you thought he had gone to extraordinary lengths to bring the Clifton and Barrington families to their knees before, that will be child’s play compared to what the diabolical man has in store now.

While Sebastian is recovering, he makes friends with the man in the next bed over at the hospital. Cedric Hardcastle (splendid name for a rogue spy, actually) is a successful, but prudent, banker and over the course of their respective recoveries he becomes a mentor to young Sebastian. Instead of going up to Oxford, Seb joins Mr. Hardcastle’s bank.
As life goes on, Emma Clifton becomes the first woman chairman of Barrington’s and continues to fight to get the MV Buckingham built while keeping the business solvent. Giles continues to climb the political ladder, Harry writes more bestsellers and Jessica becomes an emerging artist, winning a place at the Royal Academy. And our old nemeses Don Pedro, Alex Fisher and Lady Virginia are there to create havoc at every turn. Oh, and the IRA gets involved. Really. The last part of the book is like a stately (and rather tame) British Ocean’s Eleven, as the two sides battle to outwit and out maneuver one another, culminating in an explosive finish.