Nicholas Shakespeare

Ex-journalist John Dyer must take on a dangerous political conspiracy to bring a killer to justice. IN A WORLD OF LIES, PROOF IS POWER. John Dyer is living a quiet life when he receives a call that changes everything: an old university friend, Lia, has been killed. Decades have passed since his last heartbreaking conversation with her, but Dyer finds himself driven to investigate. What Dyer uncovers puts him in the path of a political conspiracy with one man at its heart. A man who forty years ago committed a crime witnessed by just four people. When another of the witnesses dies in suspicious circumstances, Dyer finds himself in danger of his life. To combat the forces arrayed against him, he needs incontrovertible proof – but will he find it in tim? s Dyer chases his leads from Tasmania to Argentina and finally to Michigan, where it all began, he unwittingly pits himself against an adversary more powerful than he could have imagined, in a race as heartstopping as tomorrow’s headlines. PRAISE FOR NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE:'An absorbing thriller with shades of John le Carré' Evening Standard'A tremendous, richly rewarding novel, written with great intelligence and narrative brio. Completely enthralling' William Boyd'One of our best and truest novelists' The Times 'Exciting... A page-turner' Daily Telegraph‘Wonderfully well written... with an insidious escalation of menace, and paranoia that fairly shimmers off the pages’ Guardian

A fresh portrait of the man behind James Bond, and his enduring impact, by an award-winning biographer with unprecedented access to the Fleming family papers. *WINNER OF THE CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION* Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture, but Fleming’s life was more mysterious than anything he wrote. Ian’s childhood with his gifted brother and extraordinary mother established his ambition to be ‘the complete man’. Only a writer for his last twelve years, his dramatic personal experiences and career in Naval Intelligence put him at the heart of critical moments in world history, while also providing rich inspiration for his fiction. Nicholas Shakespeare is one of the most gifted biographers working today. His talent for uncovering new material that casts fresh light on his subjects is fully evident in this masterful, definitive biography.

*** Selected as a 2017 Book of the Year in the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Observer and The Economist ***`A gripping story of Churchill's unlikely rise to power' ObserverLondon, May 1940. Britain is under threat of invasion and Neville Chamberlain's government is about to fall. It is hard for us to imagine the Second World War without Winston Churchill taking the helm, but in Six Minutes in May Nicholas Shakespeare shows how easily events could have gone in a different direction. It took just six minutes for MPs to cast the votes that brought down Chamberlain. Shakespeare moves from Britain's disastrous battle in Norway, for which many blamed Churchill, on to the dramatic developments in Westminster that led to Churchill becoming Prime Minister. Uncovering fascinating new research and delving into the key players' backgrounds, Shakespeare gives us a new perspective on this critical moment in our history. `Totally captivating. It will stand as the best account of those extraordinary few days for very many years' Andrew Roberts`Superbly written... Shakespeare has a novelist's flair for depicting the characters and motives of men' The Times`Utterly wonderful... It reads like a thriller' Peter Frankopan

Andy Larkham, is a recently jilted lover, and resentfully underpaid publishing minion. Arriving late to the funeral of his favourite schoolteacher, he ends up in the wrong chapel with one other mourner, too embarrassed to leave. Pressured to sign the register, little does he realise what effect that signature will have upon his life.