BOOK REVIEWS

THE SECRET ROYALS

By Richard J Aldrich & Rory Cormac (Atlantic, £25)

Reviewed by Alexander Larman

Of the author Anthony Powell it was said that he would judge the memoir of one of his peers, friends or nemeses by whether he was in it. When the book was published, he would stroll over to Heywood Hill and glance in the index. If his name was to be found there – however vituperative the context – he would purchase it. But if it was absent, it would be replaced upon the shelf and no further heed paid to it. I have yet to find the contemporary equivalent from my peers – most of whom seem curiously reluctant to write the kind of autobiographies in which I might feature – but I was very pleased, not only for my last book The Crown in Crisis to be cited in Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac’s excellent study of the relationship between the Royal Family and the security services, but indeed to appear in the index myself as a source. Judged purely on the Powellian criteria, this immediately qualifies as a must-buy, but thankfully there is considerably more to Aldrich and Cormac’s book than simply a flattering index. It begins in the reign of Queen Victoria – after a dutiful acknowledgement of the so-called ‘intelligencers’ such as Frances Walsingham who were used by Elizabeth I – and ends with a considered and indepth chapter entitled ‘The Diana Conspiracy’, which, as its name might suggest, explores many of the theories and intrigues around Princess Diana’s death. It is a long book at over 600 pages, but an enthralling one. Ideas are proposed in moderate, rather than sensational, fashions and the cumulative effect is quite fascinating.

The royals have traditionally operated as rather a secretive organisation. Although the likes of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle are partially open to the public and a redacted form of their accounts is published annually, it remains undeniably true that we don’t have much of an idea of their activities, especially those that take place behind closed doors. When Prince Philip died recently, details of his will were sealed for 90 years, by which time everyone reading this will be dead themselves, and so any revelations about especially surprising bequests – such as to his ‘riding companion’ Penelope Knatchbull – will have little more shock value than we might find in the affairs of George V.

Therefore, it’s little surprise that the security services and MI5 (as well as the FBI, who make numerous cameos here) have traditionally had an ambivalent relationship with an unaccountable and unelected organisation that nevertheless possesses enormous wealth and power. (I’d be fascinated, incidentally, to see Aldrich and Cormac produce a similar book about the relationship between another

“Aldrich and Cormac use well-worn but apposite documents, recently unearthed sources and their own informed speculation to evoke a difficult, uneasy period between the early 30s and the accession of Elizabeth II to the throne”

wealthy, secretive cabal, namely the church and the security services.) And some of the stories found here, although fascinating, stray off the obvious brief. It’s revelatory that MI5 were involved in Rasputin’s assassination, and its account of Victorian interEuropean powerplay is comprehensive yet clear, but given that the security services did not exist until the 20th century, some of this material runs the risk of being included for ‘added value’.

Where it excels is in the depiction of Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson and George VI. Aldrich and Cormac use well-worn but apposite documents, recently unearthed sources and their own informed speculation to evoke a difficult, uneasy period between the early 30s and the accession of Elizabeth II to the throne, when it could never be quite clear whose loyalties could be trusted and when a paranoid King George even had his own secret service, whose tasks and responsibilities sometimes ran counter to what the ‘official’ service was doing. And, inevitably, the Duke of Windsor comes across as extraordinarily badly here as he has done in virtually every biographical account; a selfish, venal man given to treacherous acts. If you wanted a clear and concise examination of this – or any other – twentieth century period, The Secret Royals is a valuable and unmissable read. And it is the icing on the cake that it uses (and attributes) my research into Edward’s would-be assassin George McMahon in July 1936 into the wider, fascinating panoply of what happened when MI5 and the Royals ended up in conflict with one another.

Book Reviews

“If you wanted a clear and concise examination of this – or any other – twentieth century period, The Secret Royals is a valuable and unmissable read”

SHORT REVIEWS

By Alexander Larman

Book Reviews

GHOSTS OF THE WEST

By Alec Marsh (Hachette Accent, £9.99)

The adventures of Professor Ernest Drabble and Sir Frank Harris – respectively an academic-cumswashbuckler and his hard-drinking journalistic sidekick – show every sign of becoming as simpatico to Chap readers as the novels of George Macdonald Fraser and Tom Sharpe. Their author Alec Marsh innately understands how to tell a ripping yarn, with a mixture of derring-do, erudition and humour, and the third chronicle in the Drabble and Harris exploits has all the near-death escapes, doublecrossing and skulduggery that a reader might expect, as our two heroes find themselves bound for America in the Thirties on a quest to intervene between the Native Americans and the heavily armed US military.

There are flaws, alas, but they are relatively minor. A character is murdered, and we never discover who the perpetrator is, perhaps because Marsh does not know himself. The transatlantic crossing that transports Harris and Drabble to the United States is splendidly done, but takes up the vast majority of the book, meaning that the final action is almost rushed. Yet set against this is the book’s hugely readable enjoyability, with witty quips, duplicitous maidens, rip-roaring adventure and even a decidedly 21st century look at colonialism.

WIDOWLAND

By CJ Carey (Quercus, £14.99)

Novels exploring what would have happened if the Nazis had conquered Britain have been one of the most popular ‘what ifs’ in dystopian fiction, from Robert Harris’ Fatherland to Len Deighton’s SS-GB. All credit, then, to CJ Carey for coming up with a novel that brings an intriguing, at times chilling, twist to the well-worn tropes.

Her protagonist Rose Ransom is a so-called ‘Geli’, one of the elite in 1953 Britain, who has a job in a propaganda department censoring classic works of literature to make them more acceptable to the ‘Alliance’, a thinly disguised Nazi party who took power in the country after a peace deal was hurriedly agreed with Prime Minister Lord Halifax. Rose is the mistress of a powerful German and enjoys a measure of freedom not granted to most of the populace. Particular contempt is reserved for the so-called ‘Friedas’, unmarried or widowed women over 50, who are forced to live in degrading and squalid conditions. Yet when Rose is tasked with investigating acts of sedition among the Friedas, she finds herself delving into deep and unpleasant areas. Carey’s novel is a page-turning delight from beginning to end, especially the alltoo-plausible sections involving a restored Edward VIII and Queen Wallis, depicted here in all their ghastly, grabby horror. n