Precipice by Robert Harris review – the prime minister’s affair

Wartime PM Asquith shares love letters and state secrets with aristocrat Venetia Stanley in a juicy political drama drawn from history

Robert Harris has a knack for& lighting on a fascinating episode of history – in his 16th novel, the affair between then prime minister Herbert Henry Asquith and the “lithe, vivacious” aristocrat Venetia Stanley during the lead-up to& the first world war – and creating from it a tight and satisfying plot.

Precipice interweaves the perspectives of 61-year-old Asquith and 26-year-old Stanley with that of Special Constable Paul Deemer, who is& investigating the origin of highly classified telegrams that turn up scattered across the countryside over the summer of 1914. It turns out that Asquith himself has been tossing them from his car window to impress Stanley, and soon Deemer is intercepting the lovers’ post to discover a gobsmacking array of& “decrypted telegrams, secret information, such a plethora of extravagant declarations of love!”