What were they thinking?

Robert Harris has established himself as a top-notch thriller writer, praised for his perceptive character work of real and imagined people, regardless of setting. He’s also adept at finding obscure stories within the corridors of power, that have outsize impacts on history, be it the mysterious doings in the Vatican (Conclave) to the white-knuckled codebreaking of World War II (Enigma). His latest, Precipice, is classic Harris in that regard. Opening in the days prior to the outbreak of World War I, Precipice portrays British Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith as he unsuccessfully tries to avoid Britain’s entry into the coming cataclysm. Harris’s genius is in telling the story through Asquith’s letters to Venetia Stanley, an aristocratic woman forty years his junior and very possibly his mistress. Venetia is the latest in a long line of black sheep in her family and her peculiar relationship to Asquith (whom she calls Prime) is an open secret among the small coterie of aristocrats that run the government. Not to say it’s approved, and Venetia herself seems ambivalent of her connection to Prime. But of one thing she is certain, and that is the absolute need that Asquith feels for her—a  need that he demonstrates by the avalanche of letters he sends her, often three in a single day. Asquith casually passes along secret government information, decoded diplomatic dispatches and detailed reports of sensitive meetings, all sent through the ordinary and unsecured post, all in the effort to prove his affection. Venetia knows that it is just a matter of time before the letters and their contents are discovered.

And they are. Scotland Yard detective Paul Deemer is tapped investigate when a sensitive documents are found scattered in the street, and it doesn’t take much to learn they were discarded by the prime minister on his drives with Venetia. Deemer is an invented character, but Harris’s use of him gives a needed outside perspective from Venetia’s and Asquith’s claustrophobic mindset. Deemer is set up in intelligence to monitor their correspondence, and it’s through his eyes that the true precipice of the title is clear: the government and its handling of the war depends on a man who is in a state of delusion both to his relationship with a much younger woman and the notion that his actions carry no repercussions.  

Astonishingly, the letters from Asquith to Venetia that Harris quotes are the actual letters that Venetia saved. Those from Venetia to Asquith are Harris’s creations (Asquith burned the originals), but it is Harris’s great knack for getting into the minds of his characters that they feel genuine. And it is in the characterization that Precipice really stands out. There’s a sense they’re both aloof and unknowable, but even their remoteness is telling. Are Venetia and Asquith foolish, thoughtless people sure that the rules do not apply? Or are they humans caught up in terrible world events and finding comfort in a relationship that worked for them? Harris uses their contradictions to illustrate the surreal world in those opening days of the war. Other members of Asquith’s government are vividly drawn—a particularly bellicose Winston Churchill is especially alarming—and his research of the early events of the war shines through his plotting. Pure thriller fans might find the pace too leisurely, and the thriller aspect of espionage plays a relatively minor role through most of the story. But that’s not really the point here. Precipice is about that slow-motion, sickening feeling as the world turns into something unrecognizable, tightly focused on two people who could do everything and nothing to change it. Precipice is highly recommended to readers of historical fiction and literary thrillers, and any fan of good writing will find much to enjoy.