Endless column inches have been filled with comparisons between the recently concluded HBO series Succession and the real-life dynastic struggles of the Murdoch clan. But for seasoned media-watchers, there has been a far more dramatic generational handover taking place, and it involves the empire once owned by David and Frederick Barclay. It’s the story of these twins and the business they built that Jane Martinson tells in You May Never See Us Again. Martinson is a former media editor of the Guardian, now professor of financial journalism at City, University of London (for transparency, I should say that we have been colleagues at both institutions). And what a tale it is: divorce, bankruptcies, courtroom clashes, secret recordings and brothers turning against one another – after decades of being so close that they created a shared family crest with an entwined D&F to adorn a palace they had built on the desolate Channel Island of Brecqhou. Martinson deftly chronicles how the Barclay twins, with almost no formal education, rose from poverty in west London to build …

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