Kane and Abel

- by Jeffrey Archer

This is the story of two protagonists - William Kane and Abel Rosnovski, told from their birth to their grave. Each was born continents apart to very different fortunes on the same day. They had little in common, except the zeal to succeed in life.

Abel Rosnovski's mother died giving birth to him in a forest. A small boy who was hunting mistook the cries of labor to be that of an animal in pain and went to investigate. Finding the little boy with the umbilical cord still attached, he takes his hunting knife and severes the cord and takes the little boy to his mother, who already had eight mouths to feed with little means to do so. She christened him Wladek and took care of him, along with her other children. He is different than all his siblings of his adopted family and was always keen on learning and studying, thus finding himself in a Baron's castle as a competition to his only child, Leon, and getting private education. When a war broke out and the castle was taken over, Baron and all alive in his castle were taken prisoners of war. Thus, in a short span of time, Wladek, who was carefree in a castle found himself in a dungeon, with no hope but death to set him free. Eventually, he was taken to a Russian prisoner camp from which he escapes and travels to America, with nothing but a silver arm band, given to him by the Baron on his dying bed. Thus the small boy from Poland reaches America with hopes of succeeding in life.

William Kane was born in a banker's family. His father, Richard Kane was a millionaire and the chairman of Kane and Cabot bank and he was destined to be his prodigy from the moment he was born. During Richard's travel in Titanic, William loses his father when he was barely seven and he vows to be everything his father was when he grew up and so he does. Eventually, by the time he reaches Harvard, he has built himself a reputation of being a shrewd investor and makes himself a small fortune by investing in stocks before he even had his first pay check. He harbors an ambition to be the chairman of the Lester bank, the then largest bank, owned by his best friend's father, Charles Lester.

Abel on the other hand has a harder life than William, working his way through the ranks as a waiter and learning English during night, while working in the morning. Being a waiter to the corner table, allowed him to be privy to some interesting conversations which allowed him to invest intelligently in stocks. Eventually, fortune favors him in the form of David Leroy, who insists that Abel become the manager of his Richmond group of hotels. And thus Abel gets his first big chance. One tragic day, David Leroy unable to find a backer who can pull his hotels out of trouble and failing to secure any financial backing after approaching Kane and Cabot bank, commits suicide, leaving Abel the owner of the Richmond group of hotels and in charge of a sinking ship.

Abel, despite his valiant attempts could not find any backers and thus, he meets William Kane who was already working in Kane and Cabot, appealing his bank to reconsider backing him up, showing his proposal as to how he intends to bring the Richmond hotels out of trouble, if he could get a chance. William does try to persuade his bank to back Abel without much success and hence had to issue a notice of thirty days to find a backer or close the hotels. Abel, after his meeting with William, pledges that he will destroy William Kane, as he believes that Kane did not give him or David Leroy a chance and hence resulted in Leroy committing suicide.

And thus begins the tale of Kane and Abel, two different protagonists, one a born millionaire and other a penniless Polish immigrant and how fate brings them together and how they progress from two strangers to arch rivals and eventually to their destruction.

Jeffrey Archer does a phenomenal job in weaving a web of intricate emotions in the back drop of banking and investments, with two very likable protagonists, who in their own justified way, were bent on facing each other off. Spanning three generations of Kane and Abel, this story unfolds at breath taking space, through the times of war and depression, through Hitler regime and America's rise, yet never having a dull moment. As a reader, I could hardly favor one protagonist over the other. The ending was beautiful and poignant and so befitting these characters of Kane and Abel, that it did have my heart weeping for them.

I loved the book, for its story and its portrayal of biblical Cain and Abel. It is a brilliant novel and a must read for all those who enjoy a good story.

Happy reading, fellow readers!!