Jack Palmer appears to be the archetypal patriarch, but when he dies his three middle-aged children learn that he has an older, illegitimate son, Titus, conceived in his first year of marriage to their mother Clattie. Of his legitimate children, Ralph and Pippa are furious. But ambitious Mark, the youngest, has something to prove to his dead father. When he finds that Titus owns some potentially lucrative business premises in London, he sees it as an opportunity to fulfil a life-long dream to run a restaurant. But Titus is part of the deal and the two men are forced into partnership. Mutual misunderstanding leads to a breakdown in communications between them, and the rest of the family watch the disintegration of their relationship with its inevitable consequences for them all. Only the wives can see the situation clearly and it is their actions that finally bring the two men to their senses. Lucy Clare has written another highly entertaining novel about the worst -- and the best -- in family relationships.