The Man from Brodney's

An extraordinary will sets lawyers in Boston and London against a problem that money alone cannot solve. Taswell Skaggs has died on Japat, an island in the South Seas, leaving a fortune whose terms depend on a marriage between two heirs. Both are already married to other people. The island's residents stand to receive the estate if the condition fails, giving the legal wrangle consequences well beyond the heirs' households.

In George Barr McCutcheon's romance and adventure novel, inheritance law shares space with aristocratic manners, competing affections and comic conversation. A later exchange between Lady Agnes and Princess Genevra turns island boredom into frank talk about marriage and attraction, while elaborate proposals for rearranging the couples expose the absurdity of their predicament. Readers interested in stories about wealth and social ambition will find a blend of legal complications and personal attachments, with an island fortune at the centre.