The Steady Running of the Hour by Justin Go: book review

The Steady Running of the Hour (2014) is set in two time periods: (1) two months in 2004 in Europe, and (2) 1914-1924 in Europe and Mt. Everest.

Tristan Campbell’s mother Elizabeth has been dead for three years, his grandmother Charlotte is a mystery, and his great-grandmother is Eleanor Grafton. Twenty-three-year-old American Tristan receives a letter from a British law firm of an inheritance. If he can prove that his great-grandmother was Imogen Soames-Andersson – the sister of Eleanor Grafton – then the vast amount of her accumulated wealth is his. But there is a catch.

English moutaineer Ashley Walsingham died climbing Mt. Everest in 1924 at the age of 29 (long before the first summit climb in 1953), leaving his vast wealth to his lover, Imogen. Imogen never claimed the inheritance, and neither did anyone else. Under the 80-year clause, Tristan has about 7 weeks to prove that Charlotte was really the daughter of Imogen, and not Eleanor. If the law firm has not had any luck in proving the line of inheritance in 80 years, what chance does Tristan have?

In parallel there are two stories alternating in chapters – one of Tristan researching his heritage, and the other of Imogen and Ashley.

Did Imogen’s sister, Eleanor, who was married to Charles Grafton, save Imogen from being an unwed mother, taking Charlotte as her own?

As Tristan begins his hurried search in the British Library, Ashley in 1916 was at the Battle of the Somme in northern France. He was mistakenly reported dead, with a bullet to his throat. Imogen receives a letter from Ashley stating that he is indeed alive, so she travels to France as he is discharged from hospital. They argue and she leaves.

Tristan travels to Paris – where he meets Mireille, also 23 years old, and to northern France  to the battlefields. There he learns that Charlotte was born in Sweden, so he leaves for Uppsala to follow the paper trail – and onto Berlin. Meanwhile pregnant Imogen had given Ashley a choice and ‘he chose war.’ Imogen is coerced by her sister Eleanor to go to Sweden to have the child, which Eleanor will raise as her own. At Lake Ejen, Dalarna, in Sweden, the sisters argue. Imogen says she can never go back to Ashley, and disappears.

In 1924 when Ashley prepares for the British climbing expedition to Mt. Everest, he visits a law firm to make his will. The lawyers ask him why he wants to leave his wealth to a missing person he has not seen in eight years.

In Berlin Tristan finds letters. Were Imogen and Ashley corresponding with each other during the eight years? A piece of jewellry, a unique brooch with Charlotte’s initials, made in the 1920s, leads Tristan to Iceland. Now he has only two weeks left to follow this trail. The law firm thinks he is on the wrong track.

Ashley, on Mt. Everest on the northern route from Tibet, is in a snow blizzard. He must make a decision whether to attempt a summit climb, leaving his colleagues behind, or not. Tristan, with two days left to prove his inheritance, must also make a decision: to continue the search – closing in on a lady in a remote village – or return to the law firm with whatever evidence he has – or return to Paris after an ultimatum by Mireille. Both the decisions by Ashley Walsingham and Tristan Campbell change their lives forever.

It is a long novel with sections of tedious research – making readers hasten to the interesting parts – what happens in Sweden, what happens on Mt. Everest, and what decision does Tristan make? It is a good plot in need of an edit, but nevertheless quite intriguing.

MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).