Charles Parnell Cassidy is an Australian politician cast in the traditional Irish-Catholic mold of rhetoric, dynasty, and influence-peddling. Martin Gregory is the moral and disenchanted protege who married Cassidy's daughter, went to Europe, became a success on his own merits, and scorned his father-in-law. When the terminally ill Cassidy appears in London to die, he makes Gregory the executor of his legal estate and sets a complex trap by offering him the keys to a vast empire of wealth and corruption spanning Australia and Southeast Asia. With Cassidy's evil influence ever present, Gregory tries to unravel the complications of the old man's estate, obligations, and debts, while struggling with his own ambition and the security of his family. A powerful story from a master storyteller.