'Precipice'
Author: Robert Harris
Publisher: Hutchinson Heinemann / 2024
Pages: 450

This is the latest blockbuster by renowned author Robert Harris.

It is the latest in the remarkable list of world-famous novels by the author whose works have been translated in 40 languages.

The first novel that brought world fame to the author was Fatherland, in which he imagines the world if Hitler had not lost World War II.

Then came the Roman Empire trilogy - Pompei, Imperium and Lustrum.

Next we can list Enigma, Archangel, The Ghost, The Fear Index, An Officer and a Spy, Dictator, Conclave, Munich, The Second Sleep, V2 and lastly Act of Oblivion, a massive manhunt for those who signed to execute King Charles I.

And now we have the latest offering.

It is July 1914 and the world is at peace, unaware that in just six months it would find itself sucked into a war, the first world war, without understanding why this was happening.

In Great Britain, still great then with an empire over a large part of the world, the prime minister was Herbert Asquith, an elderly lawyer with a very sharp but deceptive brain who epitomised the perfect Edwardian gentleman, though he himself did not come from patrician stock.

He had married into money and his wife was a pushy, ambitious lady who at first had wanted to be addressed as "the prime ministress" until he stopped her.

The prime minister had always surrounded himself with young ladies causing a frisson of scandal but none so remarkable than his present liaison with a girl half his age.

This was Venetia Stanley, young, not so good looking, rich from an aristocratic family but with a very sharp mind.

They found ways of meeting all the time and the girl listened carefully as the prime minister told her of all his political and government problems. He even passed on to her all sorts of government documents, most of them secret.

Sometimes the couple screwed up the paper and threw it out of the car, so carefree they were.

For me, the biggest surprise was when the author tells us in his foreword that all letters from the prime minister quoted in the text are authentic as are the telegrams, newspaper reports and official documents. Only the letters from Venetia Stanley to the prime minister are invented, as is the character of Paul Deemer, who becomes a key figure.

As the aged prime minister finds himself leading the country into war with Germany, a young intelligence officer investigating a case of sexual intrigue suddenly finds himself investigating a case of national security.

In true Robert Harris tradition, the book becomes another "What if?" conundrum; what if things happened like this? It's playing around with history, turning it upside down, giving a new twist to things.