Precipice

In _Precipice_, Robert Harris weaves fascinating facts and fiction into a historical novel. In summer 1914, amidst a volatile political situation in Ireland, British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith leads his country into war with Germany. Not a good time for a politician to be distracted by an all-consuming affair with a much younger woman. While composing love letters, Asquith pays scant attention to the political discussions in cabinet meetings in the weeks immediately before the outbreak of the First World War, and is busily plotting ways to escape his political duties and visit his mistress. Several confidential documents revealing details of the government’s military and diplomatic plans are then found by members of the public and turned over to the police. Detective Sergeant Paul Deemer, an intelligence officer from Scotland Yard, is assigned to investigate the leak of documents that should only have been made available to a handful of cabinet members. While doing so, he stumbles across the Prime Minister’s romantic relationship with the aristocratic Venetia Stanley, who is more than 30 years his junior. This affair now becomes a matter of national security.