Bloodlines

Novelist Donald T. Beldock offers two storylines that depict widely diverse social and commercial settings which in turn demonstrate the fascinating evolution of American society over a seventy-year period ending in the 1990s. In its postmodernist impressionist style, Bloodline begins with Peter Klein's first- person narrative about his close friend and classmate from Horace Mann and Yale. A testy discussion takes place at a major law office in Manhattan. Danny Miller, a successful financier, has just been indicted by Federal prosecutors, and Klein represents him. Klein's colleague is Emil Zola Farkas, revered former appellate court justice and now the ranking rainmaker-one who brings in new business-in the firm. The second narrative in this postmodern plot employs the third person restricted point of view and recounts chronologically how Max Landers comes to power. He makes his way from Hamburg through immigration at Ellis Island in 1921 to power and fortune in booming post-war Dallas. Beldock alternates his two story lines until he joins them in a stunning conclusion that will both startle and please readers already enthralled by this tale of loyalty, generosity, and betrayal.