The Steady Running of the Hour
“A wonderful time-slip story, beautifully written with a superb sense of place. Go captures the spirit of early twentieth-century England perfectly, both in the past and the present, in a novel that is exciting, emotionally engaging, and ambitious. I loved it!”
Kate Mosse, New York Times bestselling author
In this mesmerizing debut novel, a young American discovers he may be heir to the unclaimed estate of an English World War I officer, which launches him on a quest across Europe to uncover the elusive truth.
Just after graduating college, Tristan Campbell receives a letter delivered by special courier to his apartment in San Francisco. It contains the phone number of a Mr. J.F. Prichard of Twyning Hooper, Solicitors, in London and news that could change Tristan's life forever.
In 1924, Prichard explains, an English alpinist named Ashley Walsingham died attempting to summit Mt. Everest, leaving his fortune to his former lover, Imogen Soames-Andersson. Walsingham's solicitors searched in vain for Imogen, but the estate was never claimed. Nearly eighty years later, new information has surfaced that leads the same law firm to believe that Tristan may be Imogen's descendant and the estate's rightful heir. But unless he can find documented evidence before the trust expires, the fortune will be divided among charitable beneficiaries in a matter of weeks.
From London archives to Somme battlefields to the Eastfjords of Iceland, Tristan races to piece together the story behind the unclaimed riches: a reckless love affair pursued only days before Ashley's deployment to the Western Front; a desperate trench battle fought by soldiers whose hope is survival rather than victory; an expedition to the uncharted heights of the world's tallest mountain. Following a trail of evidence that stretches to the far edge of Europe, Tristan becomes consumed by Ashley and Imogen's story. But as he draws close to the truth, Tristan realizes he may be seeking something more than an unclaimed fortune.
Praise