Precipice – Robert Harris

In the summer of 1914 as Europe stands on the precipice of war, Herbert Henry Asquith, the last (as it turns out) Liberal Prime Minister, wrestles with the international situation that faces the United Kingdom. Only one thing helps him to clear his mind, think things through, and determine a way forward: or rather one person. Not his political aides and allies, nor his long-standing wife and family, but his twenty-six-year-old ‘special friend’ Miss Venetia Stanley.

They write to each other daily, sometimes two or three times a day (that’s what you call a postal service!). He takes her on chauffeur-driven rides enabling secluded talks in the back of his official limousine, and on romantic walks in parks and country lanes. And during the walking and the talking he discusses the confidential affairs of state on his mind. And in the letters, he shares classified information and top-secret telegrams.

Now the Stanleys are establishment, well connected, and though the ‘special friendship’ is noted in their close circles, the extent and exact nature ae veiled in discretion. Until, that is, some discarded documents come to the attention of MI5, and Sergeant Paul Deemer is tasked with investigating their source.

Crafted from the scarcely believable actual letters from Asquith to Venetia (the replies are imagined by Harris) the spellbinding narrative moves through a year of personal and political drama. It is not thrill-a-minute, more like watching a slow-motion train crash. You know it won’t end well but don’t know exactly when and how it will come off the rails.

Full of period detail, with bit parts for the likes of Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George, and Lord Kitchener, it retains interest throughout. Harris is a good storyteller and balances the threads of the narrative – the Asquith & Venetia affair, the Paul Deemer investigation, and the outbreak of the First World War – in masterful fashion.