The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall

By: Paul Torday

Narrated by: Richard Mitchley

From the best-selling author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen comes a story of inheritance, a great country house, and a way of life that is disappearing...Ed Hartlepool has been living in self-imposed exile for five years, but with a settlement regarding his inheritance looming, he must return to his ancestral seat, Hartlepool Hall.

On his return, he discovers that his father has left him, along with the house, a seven million pound tax bill, two massive overdrafts, an 80-year-old butler, and a vast country estate that is creaking at the seams. Not only that, but there is a strange woman in residence - Lady Alice - who seems to have made herself very much at home.

With the debts mounting, it seems that Ed's only recourse is to turn to his friend Annabel's new boyfriend, a property developer who plans to turn Hartlepool Hall into luxury flats and a golf course. But can Ed save his inheritance without such a drastic move? And is Lady Alice really the person she claims to be?

©2011 Paul Torday (P)2012 Orion Publishing Group Limited

Disappointing

Or maybe it's just me—I found the relentless human, financial and emotional stupidity of the main character depressing; I'll skip to the end to see what machinations get him out of his entitled, parasitical aristo troubles, but only to settle my mind.

It was OK

I still am not exactly sure of what the point of this book was except to make it very clear that individuals make very bad life decisions often. I kept thinking there was going to be a plot with a point or a plot that was going somewhere, but I don't think a plot ever really developed. I finished the book with a "hunh??" I guess I am glad that I listened to it. I don't want to listen to it again. I do want to make good life decisions, even more now than ever, and clearly money does not equal happiness, but I don't think I needed to listen to this book to arrive at these decisions!