From Publishers Weekly
Veteran British novelist Dobbs (Winston's War), who served as an adviser under Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, here follows Winston Churchill through the chaotic Dunkirk days and deeper into WWII, smartly relying on auxiliary plotlines to add detail to the larger-than-life Churchill saga. Among the secondaries, the German émigré historian Ruth Mueller is a Hitler biographer and detractor who plays Churchill's moral compass and confidante. Ironically, Ruth draws the personal parallels between Churchill and his nemesis Hitler. The CBS radio broadcasts of the blunt William L. Shirer, who assesses both men, air from wartime Berlin. Further off, Donald Chichester, a young British orderly in France, lives down his father's stinging rebuke over his unwillingness to fight with arms, while closer in, U.S. Ambassador Joseph Kennedy emerges as an opportunistic, backstabbing cad who self-destructs by the novel's end. To Dobbs' credit, Churchill's character flaws, particularly his drinking and fits of depression, are portrayed alongside his heroics, climaxed by his rousing "never surrender" speech subsequent to the Dunkirk evacuation. Dobbs' infuses dramatic tension, inventive plots, and heady pacing in the narration of a British icon's noblest hours.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
Winston Churchill embarks on a battle of wills with Adolf Hitler in the run-up to Dunkirk. The compelling new historical novel from the acclaimed author of Winston's War. 10 May 1940. In the early hours Hitler launches his attack on France, Holland and Belgium. The Phoney War is at an end. In four weeks, Hitler will win the most devastating series of victories in the history of modern warfare that will make him master of Europe. A few hours after Hitler's attack begins, Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of a beleaguered, confused and dispirited Britain. He is surrounded by intrigue and mistrusted by his colleagues, who within days will plot to throw him out of office. He is also about to suffer the most humiliating military setback at Dunkirk that brings Britain within hours of defeat and surrender. This is the story of those four crucial weeks in which Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler were pitted against each other, man to man, mind to mind, in a confrontation that both came to regard as a personal battle of wills. Their clash began immediately, on 10 May, when Churchill sent a letter to the old German Kaiser, Wilhelm II. It continued as first Holland and then Belgium surrendered, and Churchill used his opponents within his own War Cabinet to confuse and outwit Hitler. And while the Wehrmacht's panzers drove remorselessly through France and towards Dunkirk, Churchill used his most secret weapon, a young and resourceful woman called Emma, to sow such confusion within the Nazi ranks that would give the British forces pinned down on the beaches of Dunkirk three vital days to sail away and to survive. Britain would fight on. By the end of those four weeks, Hitler was at the gates of Paris and master of all he surveyed. But Churchill had already broken him on the most crucial battlefield of all, the battlefield of the mind.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.