At a lush villa on the sun-soaked island of Madeira, Martin Radford is given a second chance. His life ruined by scandal, Martin holds in his hands the leather-bound journal of another ruined man, former British cabinet minister Edwin Strafford. Whatβs more, Martin is being offered a jobβto return to England and investigate the rise and fall of Strafford, an ambitious young politician whose downfall, in 1910, is as mysterious as the strange deaths that still haunt his family.
Martin is intrigued by Straffordβs story, by the manβs overwhelming love for a beautiful suffragette, by her inexplicable rejection of him and their love affairβs political repercussions. But as he retraces Straffordβs ruination, Martin realizes that Strafford did not fall by chance; he was pushed. Suddenly Martin, who has not cared for many people in his life, cares desperatelyβabout a manβs mysterious death and a familyβs terrible secret, about a love beyond reckoning and betrayal beyond imagining. Most of all Martin cares because the story he is uncovering is not yet overβand among the men and women still caught in its web, Martin himself may be the most vulnerable of allβ¦.
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