History can be the best of subjects or the worse depending on your individual mindset, for any event in history can be a huge puzzle that can and does cause debate years and years after any given event. History is not as bad as the saying about economics (ask four economist a question as to what will happen and you will receive five opinions), for at least with history there are certain proven facts, records, confessions, etc.

In this historical novel, the author pulls on diaries, interviews, memoirs, and other sources to provide the reader with an excellent overview of numerous personalities (Churchill, Halifax, Goebbels, Goring, Beaverbrook, and others), their strategies, fears, personalities, and so on and how by interacting with one another, they created the saga of the Battle of Britain. How close to defeat was England at that time and how great the burden on the shoulders of men like Churchill, Beaverbrook, and others as they had to hold together and create a national will against not only the forces of Hitler, but also against those within their own country and even cabinet who wished to take a different course. How easy it would have been to simply make some sort of deal with Hitler in the vain hope that he, who had broken every agreement, could be trusted.