- Paperback: 704 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins; New Ed edition (4 July 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006498000
- ISBN-13: 978-0006498001
- Product Dimensions: 17.5 x 11.2 x 4.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 29,276 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘Michael Dobbs’ latest novel is a vividly realised record of the events surrounding the great Briton’s remarkable rise. An intriguing tale of espionage and treason … a work to enthral. This novel never ceases to be compelling.’
Stephanie Cross, Daily Mail
‘Churchill is a brooding presence … as riveting as Francis Urquhart. Dobbs’ novel is astonishingly historically accurate. He certainly knows where all the skeletons are hidden and where every body is buried. He manages to give a vivid impression of the seamier side of politics in the year that immediately preceded the outbreak of war … compelling.’
Anthony Howard, The Times
‘Dobbs has done a brilliant job in evoking the drama and despair of Britain hovering on the edge of the abyss.’
Sunday Express
‘Michael Dobbs weaves a fascinating tale of conspiracy, blackmail and treachery … This page-turning, meaty, densely textured wartime thriller unblinkingly dissects the wealthy oligarchy that nearly ruined Britain and throws a very new light on Burgess and his place in history.’
Myles McWeeney, Irish Independent
Product Description
From a bestselling novelist with an unrivalled insight into the workings of power comes a compelling new novel exploring Winston Churchill’s remarkable journey from the wilderness to No 10 Downing Street at the beginning of World War II.
Saturday 1 October 1938. Two men meet. One is elderly, the other in his twenties. One will become the most revered man of his time, and the other known as the greatest of traitors.
Winston Churchill met Guy Burgess at a moment when the world was about to explode. Now in is astonishing new novel, Michael Dobbs throws brilliant fresh light upon Churchill's relationship with the Soviet spy and the twenty months of conspiracy, chance and outright treachery that were to propel Churchill from outcast to messiah and change the course of history.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As Churchill's growling tones lift off the page, you are immediately engaged with this remarkable book. Dobb's skill with dialogue is supreme. He inhabits this book with some pretty rum people. You recoil as you get a string whiff of the stale tobacco and whisky that seem to permeate the KGB agent, Guy Burgess - yet you can only marvel at his Machiavellian mind. Joseph Kennedy's evil is palpable. It reads like a fly-on-the-wall documentary, as Dobbs gives colour, flesh and vitality to long dead monochrome players. Like the Trumpers' barber, you eavesdrop on history. Would all such historical books be so true to life. I commend it to other readers.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Unfortunately I read this novel in parallel with "Eminent Churchillians" by Andrew Roberts, and I was left with the strong suspicion at times that Roberts' chapter on the Tory Party was almost being cut-and-pasted into the Dobbs book.
The anachronistic dialogue irritates (did high civil servants in the 1930's really use the f-word continuously?), but the explanation of the Churchill succession to the Premiership is certainly ingenious. The minor characters seem rather to lose their way, and to be tidied up at the end almost as after-thoughts. Dobbs might have skipped some of them and given us a bit more insight into the minds of Joe Kennedy and Beaverbrook, who are presnted as one-dimensional ogres. Cleverly, JFK appears in a non-speaking part.
Guy Burgess emerges as more interesting than I had expected, but Dobbs has actually attributed some of the stories surrounding Tom Driburg (also a cameo appearance) to Burgess himself - a bit lazy, really.
It's a bit like "Jesus of Nazareth" in a way, because we all know how the story ends before we finish the first page. So full marks to Dobbs for keeping us engaged to the end.
But please don't imagine that reading this book gives you any special insight into Appeasement, Norway and the Fall of Chamberlain - it's good fiction for the beach, quite well researched, but modern history it ain't.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I approached this book with some trepidition but was pleasantly surprised. The characters stand out as very real, it's as if Mr Dodds was a bystander on all the important conversations and goings on leading to the outbreak of WW2.
I would recommend to anyone who has a passing interest in the subject matter
I would recommend to anyone who has a passing interest in the subject matter
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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SAFE READING - NO SPOILERS
If you want details of the story, see other reviews; I am going to comment generally. Read more
If you want details of the story, see other reviews; I am going to comment generally. Read more
Published 10 months ago by RR Waller
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This is an excellent piece of "faction" in which the "real" characters such as Churchill and Chamberlain come over better than the main fictional characters. Read more
Published on 24 Sep 2009 by John Fitzpatrick
A Damn Good Read
The reviews for this book are mixed. I can only say, read my other reviews to know whether I am easily pleased or not! Read more
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My wife (who has encouraged me to read more in the last few years than I have ever done before, bless her), picked up an unread copy of this in a local charity shop. Read more
Published on 23 Jan 2004 by Mr. P. Watkinson
Very Disappointing
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