Book
A Dangerous Fortune
First published 1993
In 1866, a pupil drowns at an elite school while several boys conceal what they witnessed. The death binds Hugh and Edward Pilaster to a secret that follows them into adulthood and into the family bank, where competence, inheritance and marriage determine who will control one of London’s major financial houses.
As Hugh proves the more capable banker, Augusta Pilaster uses reputation, patronage and blackmail to protect her own branch of the family. Overseas speculation and the unresolved school death place the bank under increasing pressure, connecting a domestic struggle for succession with the instability of Victorian finance and the vulnerability of respectable institutions to private crime.
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