Tom Chapel the son of wealthy parents, has drifted for a large part of his life, then out of the blue he in contacted by a lawyer who informs him that his daughter, living with her mother in the South of France, has inherited a fortune. Unhappy with his life, his failed marriage, recent affair and his disastrous relationship with his mother, he flies from the USA to the South of France, where upon arrival he discovers that his daughter has been abducted, attacked and left in a coma.
Convinced that the attack is in someway connected to the 28 million dollar fortune, Tom sets out to discover why this money has been left to his daughter. His search takes him back to the second world war, the Vichy government, and the local resistance group who assisted Jews to escape during that time. Initially he makes little progress, his uneasy relationship with his ex-wife does not help, and the local police do not seem to be making any satisfactory progress in their investigation into his daughter’s abduction, but as the summer drought drags on and the drowned village of St Juste, buried more than forty years ago, starts to re-emerge, so he begins to uncover the long buried secrets of St Juste and faces discrepancies in his own background that have longed puzzled him. His search for the truth brings him into direct confrontation with the family who expected to inherit, and who have been since the war benefactors of the small community. As he seek answers, he finds only more questions.
The setting was brooding, still overshadowed by the past. The village with
it’s generations of families, who have lived there for centuries, and keep their
secrets hidden and will not divulge them easily. Donald James is the master.
This book has everything, family secrets buried in the past, twists, surprise
upon surprise. Easily one of the best books I have read this year, and Adam
Sims does it justice by his fine delivery of the prose. He hits just the right
note for Tom Chapel and kept me spellbound to the last word.
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Lizzie Hayes
Donald James is a renowned historian, the author of several books, two of my
favouites being A Spy At Evening and The House of Janus. He also
has a series featuring Police Inspector Constantin Vadim set in Russia in 2015.