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. Whatโs more, Martin is being offered a jobโto 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 Straffordโs story, by the manโs overwhelming love for a beautiful suffragette, by her inexplicable rejection of him and their love affairโs political repercussions. But as he retraces Straffordโs 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 desperatelyโabout a manโs mysterious death and a familyโs 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 overโand among the men and women still caught in its web, Martin himself may be the most vulnerable of allโฆ.
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