Newlyweds Charles and Kate Sheridan have moved into Kate’s ancestral Georgian home Bishop’s Keep, where Kate plans to devote herself to her writing and Charles to the responsibilities of the landed gentry. He agrees to host an automobile exhibition and balloon race attended by Europe’s foremost investors and inventors, among them the young Mr. Charles Rolls and Henry Royce.

But speed, competition, and money prove to be more explosive than gasoline-and for one automobile builder, more deadly…