Precipice by Robert Harris review – the PM and the socialite

In this nuanced and poignant retelling of the affair between HH Asquith and Venetia Stanley, the novelist blurs the line between fact and fiction, illuminating love and power

Robert Harris’s background in journalism is always evident in his books. The novels themselves are remarkably various, taking us from ancient Rome (his Cicero trilogy) to high finance (2011’s The Fear Index), from an alternative history of the second world war (Fatherland) to the hunt for the men who signed Charles II’s death warrant (Act of Oblivion). He’s a writer whose work is energised by its engagement with facts, but particularly those facts that have been hidden or occluded, requiring the twitching nose of the journalist to sniff them out.

Precipice is set in the summer of 1914: “that improbably glorious summer” before the great war opened up a chasm in the world. Harris was given access to an archive of letters, telegrams and official documents in the possession of the Bonham-Carter family, many of which are reprinted in the novel, several for the first time. Through these documents, he has constructed a quite brilliant novel about a clandestine love affair.

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