The Whitby Trilogy, of which Eugene is the first part, traces the life and times (over one hundred years) of a family of butchers. Eugene, the youngest of thirteen siblings, was born in 1927 and when aged eighteen was sent to Burma in the closing months of the Japanese campaign. As an old man he befriended Pearl (the title of part 2 of the trilogy), who recorded his life story and prepared a Whitby family tree. In that second book, she sets out to disprove allegations of murder and corruption levelled at Eugene. The fourth generation of the family throws up Luke (part 3) who may have inherited bad blood going back to Eugene's generation