There had always been Olivers living in Dalethorpe. In fact, the village had been founded nearly twelve hundred years ago by the family's Viking ancestor, Karl Olafsen, and his Hebrew slave-girl wife, Rachel. For much of the last two hundred years most of the residents of the village owed their livelihoods to the Oliver family, who were both the local squires and mill-owners. However, once they had established their other family home in the leafy London suburb of Hampstead, their influence was felt well beyond the boundaries of the small East-Lancashire village. The family was simultaneously...