This thoroughly researched historical novel covers only four days in late 1938. Hitler has threatened to invade and annex Sudetenland to expand the Third Reich. British, Italian, French and German leaders with their diplomatic staff meet in Berlin in a desperate effort to avert war. So far strictly factual. Two junior diplomats, one German and the other British, and both Oxford graduates, working independently at first, and then together try desperately to sabotage the process, more alert to the dangers of appeasing Hitler than the leaders (not so factual). Squabbling and scheming diplomats abound. Sir Neville Chamberlain becomes the hero who appeared to save the world from what seemed like certain war, at the last minute. His speech announcing that the leaders had reached an agreement ensuring “peace in our time” later became the main reason historians have betrayed him as a weak and foolish leader. It is always easier to judge leaders with knowledge of the consequences of their decisions, than to consider their decisions in the context in which they were made.
The plotting of the strategies and the character development is realistic and entertaining. And this is a timely cautionary tale about the dangers of yielding any ground to egotistical lying devious would-be dictators
The Passionate Reader 