I’ve read and enjoyed many historical novels by Robert Harris. This one, although based on a fascinating premise, did not quite live up to what I’ve come to expect from this author.

When the novel opens in July 1914, UK Prime Minister H.H. Asquith is involved in an affair with socialite Venetia Stanley, member of a wealthy aristocratic family. Stanley is 35 years younger than Asquith; at the beginning of the novel, she is 26 and he is 61. They see each other on social occasions, they walk on Hampstead Heath, he takes her on drives in the curtained back seat of his Rolls Royce, and they send each other passionate letters.

Asquith had long had a penchant for the company of attractive young women, but one thing that makes his relationship with Stanley different from the others is the extent to which he relies on her intelligence and uses her as a sounding board and sometime political advisor. The other difference, of course, is that World War I breaks out in August 1914, a conflict of such complexity and carnage that Asquith faces unprecedented political challenges. As a result, he often writes Stanley three letters a day, discusses confidential cabinet discussions, and even sends her the originals of top secret communiqués.

The novel covers the relatively short time of a single year, but a lot happens. This includes a tragic accident among Stanley’s social set, the tense events leading to the outbreak of war, the planning for the ultimately disastrous Gallipoli campaign, an insider’s look into political infighting among British cabinet members, and an investigation launched by Scotland Yard into who’s responsible for top secret telegrams being found discarded across southern England.

The characters are well developed, and I particularly liked the main female character, a clever, insightful woman bored with her shallow social scene and searching for something more meaningful in her life.

What eventually cast a slight pall of my enjoyment of the book was Asquith himself. His love for Venetia Stanley was obsessive, self-indulgent, and reckless, and his letters to her (quoted from the originals) became tedious and whiny. As a result, I was not sorry for the book to end.

Despite that, I still rate the novel a four-star read. If you can get the audiobook book, give it a listen. The incomparable Samuel West is the narrator.