'Part Ozymandias, part Succession' - Financial Times

'A tour de force' - Guardian
A Financial Times Book of the Year 2023

The inside story of the rise and fall of the Barclay brothers, secretive business titans and one-time owners of the Ritz and the Daily Telegraph

Born poor, the Barclay brothers were enigmatic twins who built one of the biggest fortunes in Britain together from scratch and spent six decades at the epicentre of business, media and politics. Their empire, said to be worth £7bn at its height, included Littlewoods, the Ritz Hotel, the Daily Telegraph and the channel island of Brecqhou. They were major advocates for Brexit and well-connected with influential politicians including Margaret Thatcher, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.

And yet despite their fortune and influence, their fiercely guarded desire for privacy has meant that their story has remained largely unknown - until a very public family dispute pitched Barclay against Barclay in the High Court.

In You May Never See Us Again, journalist Jane Martinson unravels the fascinating story of these once inseparable billionaire brothers. Through their lives she offers compelling insights into post-war Britain, from the conditions that enabled their way of doing business to thrive, through to the tightly enmeshed webs of influence between capitalism, politics and the media that shape Britain today.

Part Ozymandias, part HBO’s Succession ... Jane Martinson has dug deep where many feared to tread. Her book is a gripping yarn of two boys who left school at 14 and became billionaires who entertained celebrities, prime ministers and royalty, only to fall out like ferrets in a sack. * Lionel Barber, former editor of the Financial Times *
This is one of those fantastic books where you take someone from business and actually give it the treatment of a novel - it’s a hell of a pace. * Nick Ferrari, LBC Presenter *
A tour de force – on how power and money can be gained, and how easily it can be lost. * Guardian *
Reads as a history of the evolution of the dodgier corners of the financial world over the last eight decades * Private Eye *
Forensic ... Strong on financial detail * Financial Times *
A cracking book – I'm in awe of how much digging went in . A pleasure to read. * Adam Macqueen, journalist and author of Private Eye: The First 50 Years *
An astonishing and at times unbelievable yarn for those still grieving the end of Succession. * New Statesman *
Jane Martinson has done a brilliant job (…) The outcome is a first-class exercise in investigative financial journalism and, if that sounds off-putting, it shouldn’t. Even for those of us who are only vaguely numerate, she transforms the information into a spellbinding story. * The Tablet *

Jane Martinson is a journalist and academic who first reported on the Barclay empire in 2004. She worked at the Financial Times before spending 18 years at the Guardian, latterly as a senior member of the editorial team. In 2018 she became the Professor of Financial Journalism at City, University of London and started to investigate the Barclay brothers soon after. Jane remains a regular columnist for the Guardian and frequently appears on broadcast media including BBC News, ITV's Good Morning, Sky News, and BBC Radio 4.