And the novel's second half, though moving past Kane and Abel into the Seventies and beyond, is surprisingly flat, with none of the melodramatic brio of the Kane/Abel story. All rehashed stuff-except for the details and viewpoints. 'My father hates your father'""), the marriage, the fathers' curses, Florentyna's fashion-shop success, the fathers' reconciliations. Then comes the recycled courtship (""'Darling,' said Richard very quietly. But first we get her precocious Chicago childhood in the Thirties, her super-education from English governess Miss Tredgold, her early love of politics, her academic achievements (special Radcliffe scholarship). As in Kane and Abel, Florentyna will grow up to meet and marry-by chance, of course-Richard Kane, son of Abel's lifelong banker-nemesis. Archer may have only a speck of talent, but he sure has chutzpah-which is what it takes to baldly recycle material from one book into another: this is a sequel to his bestselling Kane and Abel (1980), and the first half is essentially just a recap of hotel-tycoon Abel's story, with the emphasis now on Abel's daughter Florentyna.
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