The basis for a television mini-series starring Hugh Grant, now a nominee for an Emmy Award

A behind-the-scenes look at the desperate, scandalous private life of a British MP and champion manipulator, and the history-making trial that exposed his dirty secrets

As a member of Parliament and leader of the Liberal Party in the 1960s and ’70s, Jeremy Thorpe’s bad behavior went under the radar for years. Police and politicians alike colluded to protect one of their own. In 1970, Thorpe was the most popular and charismatic politician in the country, poised to hold the balance of power in a coalition government.

But Jeremy Thorpe was a man with a secret. His homosexual affairs and harassment of past partners, along with his propensity for lying and embezzlement, only escalated as he evaded punishment. That is, until a dark night on the moor with an ex-lover, a dog, and a hired gun led to consequences that even his charm and power couldn’t help him escape.

Dubbed the “Trial of the Century,” Thorpe’s climactic case at the Old Bailey in London was the first time that a leading British politician had stood trial on a murder charge, and the first time that a murder plot had been hatched in the House of Commons. And it was the first time that a prominent public figure had been exposed as a philandering gay man in an era when homosexuality had only just become legal.

With the pace and drama of a thriller, A Very English Scandal is an extraordinary story of hypocrisy, deceit, and betrayal at the heart of the British establishment.

Winner of the UK’s 2022 Costa Prize for Biography

“A portrait of one of the most enigmatic figures in the annals of white-collar crime. . . . A well-researched, compelling book that uncovers many mysteries about a media tycoon.”–Kirkus Reviews

From the acclaimed author of A Very English Scandal, a thrilling and dramatic true-life account of the rise and fall of one of the most notorious media moguls of all time: Robert Maxwell.

In February 1991, Robert Maxwell triumphantly sailed into Manhattan harbor on his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, to buy the ailing New York Daily News. Taxi drivers stopped their cabs to shake his hand, children asked for his autograph, and patrons of the hottest restaurant in Manhattan gave him a standing ovation while he dined. Ten months later, Maxwell disappeared off that same yacht in the middle of the night and was later found dead in the water. As John Preston reveals in this entertaining and revealing biography, Maxwell’s death was as mysterious as his remarkable life.

A tightly paced, addictive saga of ambition, hubris, narcissism, greed, power, and intrigue, Fall recounts Maxwell’s rise and fall and rise and fall again. Preston weaves backwards and forwards in time to examine the forces that shaped Maxwell, including his childhood as a Jew in occupied Eastern Europe through his failed political ambitions in the 1960s which ended in accusations of financial double-dealing, and his resurrection as a media mogul–and on to the family legacy he left behind, including his daughter Ghislaine Maxwell.

Preston chronicles Maxwell’s all-encompassing rivalry with Rupert Murdoch–a battle that ruined Maxwell financially, threatened his sanity and lead, indirectly, to his death. Did Maxwell have a heart attack and fall overboard? Was his death suicide? Or was he murdered–possibly by Mossad or the KGB? Few in the twentieth century journeyed as far from his roots as Robert Maxwell. Yet, as Fall reveals, no one, however rich and powerful, can entirely escape their past.

Reimagining the Sutton Hoo dig, the greatest Anglo-Saxon archaeological discovery on British soil, John Preston brilliantly dramatizes three months of intense activity on a small estate when locals fought outsiders, professionals thwarted amateurs, and love and rivalry flourished in equal measure.

In the long hot summer of 1939, Britain is preparing for war, but on a riverside farm in Suffolk there is excitement of another kind. Mrs. Pretty, a widowed farmer, has had her hunch proved correct that the strange mounds on her land hold buried treasure. As an archaeological dig proceeds against a background of mounting national anxiety, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary find, and the discovery leads to a host of jealousies and tensions.

Elegantly crafted with great tenderness and a poignant attention to detail, The Dig is more than a novel about archaeology. At its very core, this is a novel about the traces of life we all leave behind.