An ambitious lawyer, a scandalous family secret, and a loan shark. Take these three elements and paint them onto a backdrop of upper-class Paris and you have Honore de Balzac's 'Gobseck'.The lawyer just happens to act for the loan shark, and he knows the secret that Anastasie de Restaud, who has married into the aristocracy, is having an affair and blowing her money on her lover.Which financial strings can the lawyer and loan shark pull? And who will be tied up by them?If you like Charles Dickens 'Bleak House' and Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice', you will love this.-