Railway enthusiast Pal Shripney’s life ends gently as he listens to Arthur Honneger’s steam engine romp Pacific 231.  But for his son Pip, with his concubine Petra, and for his nephew Harry, a Cambridge history don, the locomotion gains pace. Wanting to marry and raise a family, Pip and Petra face hurdles. Where in this complicated world can an uncle legally marry his niece?  Meanwhile on an aid project in Cambodia they discover mysterious Chloe and unsettling Kevin. They are glad to see Kevin go back to America, but Chloe returns with them to England, where the secrets from the past begin to be revealed: first Chloe’s, then Pal’s, then Harry’s, this one exploited by the tabloid press. Then a further disclosure involves a resurfaced Kevin. It takes a journey to Australia and persistence with English bureaucracy before the Shripney saga ends happily ever after.