Never Surrender

September 17, 2007
Veteran British novelist Dobbs (Winston's War), who served as an adviser under Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, here follows Winston Churchill through the chaotic Dunkirk days and deeper into WWII, smartly relying on auxiliary plotlines to add detail to the larger-than-life Churchill saga. Among the secondaries, the German emigre historian Ruth Mueller is a Hitler biographer and detractor who plays Churchill's moral compass and confidante. Ironically, Ruth draws the personal parallels between Churchill and his nemesis Hitler. The CBS radio broadcasts of the blunt William L. Shirer, who assesses both men, air from wartime Berlin. Further off, Donald Chichester, a young British orderly in France, lives down his father's stinging rebuke over his unwillingness to fight with arms, while closer in, U.S. Ambassador Joseph Kennedy emerges as an opportunistic, backstabbing cad who self-destructs by the novel's end. To Dobbs' credit, Churchill's character flaws, particularly his drinking and fits of depression, are portrayed alongside his heroics, climaxed by his rousing "never surrender" speech subsequent to the Dunkirk evacuation. Dobbs' infuses dramatic tension, inventive plots, and heady pacing in the narration of a British icon's noblest hours.

August 20, 2007
Veteran British novelist Dobbs (Winston's War), who served as an adviser under Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, here follows Winston Churchill through the chaotic Dunkirk days and deeper into WWII, smartly relying on auxiliary plotlines to add detail to the larger-than-life Churchill saga. Among the secondaries, the German émigré historian Ruth Mueller is a Hitler biographer and detractor who plays Churchill's moral compass and confidante. Ironically, Ruth draws the personal parallels between Churchill and his nemesis Hitler. The CBS radio broadcasts of the blunt William L. Shirer, who assesses both men, air from wartime Berlin. Further off, Donald Chichester, a young British orderly in France, lives down his father's stinging rebuke over his unwillingness to fight with arms, while closer in, U.S. Ambassador Joseph Kennedy emerges as an opportunistic, backstabbing cad who self-destructs by the novel's end. To Dobbs' credit, Churchill's character flaws, particularly his drinking and fits of depression, are portrayed alongside his heroics, climaxed by his rousing "never surrender" speech subsequent to the Dunkirk evacuation. Dobbs' infuses dramatic tension, inventive plots, and heady pacing in the narration of a British icon's noblest hours.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2007
Dobbs, a noted writer of historical novels with a political slant, takes us so far inside the mind of Winston Churchill that we feel as though we actually are him, at least for a while. The novel takes place during roughly three weeks in the early 1940s, during Adolf Hitlers European push that ended in the invasion of France, Holland, and Belgium, and in the humiliation of Britain. Churchill, a man whose outward self-confidence masks a near-crippling inner sense of inferiority and self-doubt, struggles to lead a country that doesnt want him as its leader and to navigate the tricky political waters and find some way to save his homeland from total destruction. This is a powerful novel, with a somewhat revisionist portrayal of Churchill that makes him seem more real, more like an ordinary person, than hes ever appeared in print. It isprobably hyperbole to say that the novel teaches us more about Churchill the man (as opposed to the political icon) than any biography could, but its not hyperbole by all that much.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)