Customer Reviews
A Damn Good Read - By: White Rose, 23 Jun 2008 
The reviews for this book are mixed. I can only say, read my other reviews to know whether I am easily pleased or not! I read this book in just under 24 hours, simply unable to put it down. I found the mix of fiction/fact to be good enough to hold my attention & the writing strong enough that nothing jarred, except for the slightly wrong details of the naive Guy Fawkes' unfortunate demise. But that is by the way, the book itself, centring as it does on Churchill, someone I freely admit to admiring a great deal, showed the back stabbing politicians at work then as they do now. Everything is political. If you want a good solid read, go no further than Michael Dobbs' excellent book & then go read the rest. I have the other three sitting here awaiting my eager eyes & attention. I don't say that lightly, believe me! As a writer myself I am ultra critical of other writers' style, mistakes & interpretations, so this, from me, is high praise indeed.
Winston's War - or was it? - By: Toby Smith, 08 Mar 2006 
I thought I was going to enjoy this but found it disappointing. Although I like history & political novels, I felt this fell between two stools - it was neither proper history, in that it was hard to work out where reality ended, nor proper fiction, because the story seemed to be inhibited by real events. Part of the reason for this, I feel, is that the politicians are too central to this book, whereas, Robert Harris, for example, tends to keep them on the periphery, so that the fictional characters have space to breathe. Frankly if I wanted to read about Appeasement politics I'd rather read about the real thing in a history book. For those reasons & others I couldn't finish this novel.
A gripping Book of the Legacy of Winston - By: , 21 Nov 2005 This book is one that you just cant put down. It is compelling & a fantastic review of the historics of world war II.
Good but not great - By: Dajx, 27 Aug 2004 
Unfortunately I read this novel in paralllel with "Eminent Churchillians" by Andrew Roberts, & I was left with the strong suspicion at times that Roberts' chapter on the Tory Party was almost being cut-and-pasted into the Dobbs book.
The anachronistic dialogue irritates (did high civil servants in the 1930's reallly use the f-word continuously?), but the explanation of the Churchill succession to the Premiership is certainly ingenious. The minor characters seem rather to lose their way, & to be tidied up at the end almost as after-thoughts. Dobbs might have skipped some of them & given us a bit more insight into the minds of Joe Kennedy & Beaverbrook, who are presnted as one-dimensional ogres. Cleverly, JFK appears in a non-speaking part.
Guy Burgess emerges as more interesting than I had expected, but Dobbs has actuallly attributed some of the stories surrounding Tom Driburg (also a cameo appearance) to Burgess himself - a bit lazy, reallly.
It's a bit like "Jesus of Nazareth" in a way, because we alll know how the story ends before we finish the first page. So full marks to Dobbs for keeping us engaged to the end.
But please don't imagine that reading this book gives you any special insight into Appeasement, Norway & the Falll of Chamberlain - it's good fiction for the beach, quite well researched, but modern history it ain't.
What a pleasant surprise - By: RT Twinem, 04 Jul 2004 
I approached this book with some trepidition but was pleasantly surprised. The characters stand out as very real, it's as if Mr Dodds was a bystander on alll the important conversations & goings on leading to the outbreak of WW2.
I would recommend to anyone who has a passing interest in the subject matter
