Harry Ringrose returns home on his twenty-first birthday after two adventurous years in Africa, his mind full of childhood memories and the warm anticipation of reunion with his parents. But the house stands empty. The furniture is being auctioned. His father has vanished, implicated in financial disgrace, and Harry is thrust into a world he never imagined: a world of shame, fallen fortunes, and the crushing weight of adult responsibility. As he pieces together the truth from a family friend, he must decide what kind of man he will become when everything he took for granted has been stripped away. Hornung, better known for his gentleman thief Raffles, crafts a gripping tale of innocence lost and selfhood forged under the pressure of scandal. This is Victorian realism at its most emotionally acute, a novel about what remains when pride, comfort, and family honor collapse.
