It is an intriguing tale of sabotage and danger, greed and betrayal, and the decisions that can cost lives. Roffe and Sons is a family business, having greedy and desperate family members. 

BLOODLINE

By Sidney Sheldon

409 pages, Doubleday Books

It is an intriguing tale of sabotage and danger, greed and betrayal, and the decisions that can cost lives. Roffe and Sons is a family business, having greedy and desperate family members.

It is an international pharmaceutical firm whose head, Sam Roffe is one of the richest man in the world. At the beginning of the story, he dies in a tragic and a very suspicious accident. He was a very good businessman but the worst father to his only daughter, Elizabeth who lost her mother in early age. He was never around due to his business that made Elizabeth hate her family business more. She always worked really hard to gain her father’s love and approval, which she never got. Suddenly her father’s right hand and her teenage crush, Rhys Williams brings the news of Sam’s death to her. She also learns that her father has made her the sole successor of Roffe and Sons. She is a young, beautiful and intelligent woman who gets overwhelmed by the turns of events in her life. When she attends the board meeting which consists of mostly her family members, she comes to know the financial condition of the firm. The board member urge her to make the company public (which means they can sell their shares). Meanwhile, Sheldon tells the story of every board members and their spouses. He also reveals the dark past of Rhys Williams. However, Elizabeth who is unaware of the story of all these money hungry people finds the situation at the company fishy when she comes to know that he father wanted the shares to remain in family. Therefore, she decides to keep the company and also starts researching his father’s death. She keeps this to herself but that only endangers her life. Someone is trying to kill her, maybe that’s the same person who is behind her father’s death. Read the story to find out who is behind all these?

These are some of my favorite quotes from the novel;

“To find riches is a beggar’s dream, but to find love is the dream of kings.” 

“Never let a friendly fox into your hen-house. One day he’s going to get hungry.” 

“Because there was a hunger in me to see everything and do everything. I wanted to be everyone I saw. I wasn’t enough for me. Can you understand that?” 

“Every man is a prisoner, and the greatest irony of all is to be the prisoner of another man.” 

To find riches is a beggar’s dream, but to find love is the dream of kings

“Every man is a prisoner, and the greatest irony of all is to be the prisoner of another man.” 

Sidney Sheldon is one of my favorite author. He never fails to amaze me. This mystery cum thriller novel hooks up the reader from the beginning and urges them to keep on turning the pages till the end. The way he shows the dark sides of each character creates an appropriate plot for the suspense. Everyone in the story have same goal, they want Roffe and Sons to go public, and they are ready to go to any extent to make this happen. Only Sidney Sheldon can make you like and yet despise a character at the same time. He weaves the story of each character in such a way that fills you with hatred for the things they did, yet you pity the circumstances which has forced them to do so. In his novel, you have “expect the unexpected”. His ending are polar opposite to the ending we expected.

Although some parts of the story seems irrelevant to storyline like Elizabeth’s homosexual fling with her boarding school teacher, still Sheldon has managed to make it a very intriguing story. If you are into suspense novels, you should definitely check this out.