2008: Almost three years have passed since the tumultuous events outlined in The Mendelssohn Connection, which thrust the unwilling Isaac Menshive into a position of global responsibility as the head of a fabulously wealthy family trust. Isaac now lives quietly, if luxuriously, in a dacha in the west of Russia with his new family: his young wife Sophie, heavily pregnant with their second child, and his infant son. While Isaac’s marital contentment has put paid to his former philandering ways, it is his old friend and most trusted adviser Will MacIntosh who finds himself emotionally unmoored — at exactly the moment when events conspire to put the immense burden of the trust squarely on his shoulders. Still in danger from unknown forces that will stop at nothing to get their hands on the trust’s considerable assets, Will and his team continue to investigate its origins and the extraordinary fortune that it has accrued over the centuries. The team’s researches point them in the direction of the city of Odessa and the early 20th century, and the unexpected involvement of two men: the first a very familiar figure from Russian history; the second hailing from Will’s own backyard on Prince Edward Island… Moving between Russia, the Ukraine, London and the Mediterranean, this second instalment of the trilogy that started with The Mendelssohn Connection finds our protagonists Will and Isaac tested as never before. Now that he has so much to lose, Isaac experiences the extremes of joy and despair, while Will, weighed down by ever more responsibility, finds his stolid self- assurance evaporating as he discovers betrayal lurking around every corner.
