Frank Stratham has finally retired. His Greek-born wife, thinking it may be a useful therapy, encourages him to look back and write about his professional adventures in the paper industry. During this retrospective journey through his complex working life in the financial world, we learn how he retired after an unsuccessful end to his career but was then suddenly asked to help his former best client, Papierfabrik Wallen in Styria, Austria.

The fate of the company and the many strands of Frank's own domestic life in London, Greece and Austria are cleverly intertwined. Frank's career is re-launched after he is asked to become chairman and float Papierfabrik Wallen on the Stock Exchange. However, troubling disclosures emerge about the company's founder, Prince Heinrich von Wallen, who seems to have had a dubious wartime past, not to mention the existence of a possible illegitimate child. This is not purely a professional assignment for Frank, as his Greek sister-in-law has married into the mysterious von Wallen family and Frank's destiny seems inextricably bound up with both Greece and Styria, despite his longing for a comfortable life in London and Kent with his wife and his beloved Leonberger.