Rating: 4/5
Review:
A fascinating, readable account
I thought this was a very good book. How scrupulously it sticks to known facts is
perhaps questionable, but it's a fascinating and gripping read which lays bare
genuine corruption in the political establishment in the 1960s and 70s, as well
as being a stark picture of the arrogance and absurdity of many of those
involved in the affair.
John Preston gives a detailed account which makes sense of
the tangled web which Jeremy Thorpe (MP, and then leader of the Liberal Party)
and others spun in order to try to conceal Thorpe's affair with Norman Scott
and his subsequent deplorable treatment of him, culminating in a bungled plot
to murder Scott. The first half of the book is interesting and readable as it
traces the origins of the affair and gives very good portraits of those
involved. The second half began to draw
me in like a good fictional thriller, and I found it extremely gripping as
things began to unravel and the conspirators were finally committed for trial.
This may not be wholly reliable as a strict historical
record – there's a good deal of interpretation by Preston
– but it's all very plausible and his accounts of established events are
excellent. He paints a very vivid
picture of the trial itself, including the judge's infamous summing-up, and it
makes excellent courtroom drama.
I wasn't at all sure I'd like this book before I started,
but I liked it very much. It's well
researched and well written, and it is an extremely readable account of a
fascinating, revealing story. I can
recommend this warmly.
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