John Rawlings is asked to investigate a man claiming to be the long-lost stepson of a wealthy Bristol merchant and therefore heir to a valuable diamond inheritance. He travels west with his father, Sir Gabriel Kent, who intends to take the waters at Hotwell, and together they enter the prosperous social world surrounding Bristol’s fashionable spa.
Beneath the respectable surface, Rawlings finds rival claims, old family grievances and people prepared to exploit uncertainty about identity for profit. His enquiry moves between merchants and the city’s less respectable quarters, making inheritance as much a question of evidence as any murder scene. The case places Georgian Bristol’s wealth, trade and social display beside the criminal opportunities created by fortunes whose ownership can be challenged.
