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  • Published: 27 August 2024
  • ISBN: 9781529152838
  • Imprint: Hutchinson Heinemann
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 464
  • RRP: $34.99

Precipice




A masterpiece from the bestselling author with our biggest and most ambitious campaign yet

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR

Summer 1914. A world on the brink of catastrophe.

In London, 26-year-old Venetia Stanley – aristocratic, clever, bored, reckless – is having a love affair with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of state.

As Asquith reluctantly leads the country into war with Germany, a young intelligence officer is assigned to investigate a leak of top secret documents – and suddenly what was a sexual intrigue becomes a matter of national security that will alter the course of political history.

Seamlessly weaving fact and fiction in a way that no writer does better, Precipice is the thrilling new novel from Robert Harris.

  • Published: 27 August 2024
  • ISBN: 9781529152838
  • Imprint: Hutchinson Heinemann
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 464
  • RRP: $34.99

About the author

Robert Harris

Robert Harris is the author of thirteen bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy - Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator - Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index, An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Conclave, Munich and The Second Sleep. Several of his books have been filmed, including The Ghost, which was directed by Roman Polanski. His work has been translated into forty languages and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in West Berkshire with his wife, Gill Hornby. His next book, V2, is coming out in autumn 2020.

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Praise for Precipice

Brilliantly blurring fact and fiction, Sunday Times bestselling author Robert Harris is back in full force

Dead Good Books - The best crime and thriller books of 2024

I’m not fond of the word masterpiece, but this is a masterpiece

Nigella Lawson

Fans of this hugely popular author should lap up this tale that mixes fact with fiction, as is his trademark

Sunday Express - Best Summer Reads

Gripping drama

Jake Kerridge, Telegraph

'A beautifully crafted novel . . . a dexterous blend of the political and the personal . . . Precipice is Robert Harris's 16th novel, and there hasn’t been a dud among them'

Allan Massie, The Scotsman

Precipice hones in on those vital summer days when Britain hovered on the brink of war, before plunging into the abyss that arguably destroyed European civilisation

Spectator

Robert Harris is one of those authors you know you can rely on. His 16th novel, Precipice, is no exception

The Times

Robert Harris is a sort of genius . . . I am knocked out by the assurance of his portrait of a time, a relationship, and the perils to which Britain’s leader exposed himself amidst a supreme historic catastrophe. The book is yet another triumph for the author

Max Hastings

Few have mastered the alchemy of the popular historical novel quite like Harris

i News

Rollicking . . . Harris’s best book since Conclave

Spectator

Jaw-dropping . . . Nobody does this sort of yarn better

The Mail on Sunday

Gripping . . . One of Harris’s many admirable qualities as a novelist is his boldness

Margaret MacMillan, Financial Times

A wonderful book

Dominic Sandbrook

Stunning . . . With his unique eye for slipping between the gaps in history, Harris has created a gripping thriller

Express

Brilliant . . . blurs the line between fact and fiction, illuminating love and power

Alex Preston, Observer

Seamlessly blends fact and fiction . . . Gripping

Daily Mirror

Historically literate, politically astute and gripping to the last page

The Times

An impressive blend of fact and fiction . . . Beautiful

Politics Home

Compelling

The Week

Gripping . . . One of Harris's many admirable qualities as a novelist is his boldness

Financial Times

A juicy political drama drawn from history

Imogen Hermes Gowar, Guardian

Seamlessly blends fact and fiction . . . Gripping

Woman's Way

Absorbing . . . Easily on par with Harris's best historical fiction

Declan Burke, Irish Times

An astonishing story, brilliantly told

Sunday Independent

Heir to le Carré and John Buchan, Harris is the classy English novelist who, in both quality and quantity, reaches the parts most writers cannot reach. The bestseller list seems to keep a place waiting for him, and every book of his is read by the Queen before its publication date. The latest, Precipice, is no exception… Harris is exceptional at taking historical stories and making them irresistibly readable, with a huge emphasis on the writing

Independent

Gripping

Sunday Express

Robert Harris is a master of the historical novel

The Literary Review

Robert Harris is a master of the historical novel. He has a genius for taking facts and providing just enough invention or exaggeration to make a compelling story . . . Precipice is gripping and plausible

Literary Review

Robert Harris is nothing if not a great storyteller. . . This novel is among Harris’s very best

Alex Peake-Tomkinson, Evening Standard

[An] exquisitely told story

Spectator, Book of the Year

Top-notch writing

Harriet Walter
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