V2: the Sunday Times bestselling World War II thriller

FROM THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR Pre-order Robert Harris's brand new novel ACT OF OBLIVION, coming September 2022 'An immersive thriller set against a tense historical backdrop ... the joy is in the history as much as the story ... Once again Harris has placed the reader at the heart of a great historic event, using a small story to tell a great one.' FINANCIAL TIMES A Sunday Times Best Historical Fiction Book of the Year The first rocket will take five minutes to hit London. You have six minutes to stop the second. Rudi Graf used to dream of sending a rocket to the moon. Instead, he has helped to create the world's most sophisticated weapon- the V2 ballistic missile, capable of delivering a one-ton warhead at three times the speed of sound. In a desperate gamble to avoid defeat in the winter of 1944, Hitler orders ten thousand to be built. Haunted and disillusioned, Graf - who understands the volatile, deadly machine better than anyone - is tasked with firing these lethal 'vengeance weapons' at London. Kay Caton-Walsh is an officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, and a survivor of a V2 strike. As the rockets devastate London, she joins a unit of WAAFs on a mission to newly liberated Belgium. Armed with little more than a slide rule and a few equations, Kay and her colleagues will attempt to locate and destroy the launch sites. But at this stage in the war it's hard to know who, if anyone, you can trust. As the death toll soars, Graf and Kay fight their grim, invisible war - until one final explosion of violence causes their destinies to collide. 'For a long time now, Harris has looked like the heir to John Le Carre, the popular yarn spinner with claims to permanence.' SUNDAY MORNING HERALD 'Harris finds the poetry in physics and the soul in engineering. He makes the V2s come to life as vividly as any of his human characters ... Harris has the great gift of readability; there is no living novelist whose books I am likelier to gobble up in one sitting.' JAKE KERRIDGE, TELEGRAPH 'I want to be the first to say it- Robert Harris scores a direct hit with V2. I was enthralled.' ANTHONY HOROWITZ 'Astonishingly precise ... As Graf and Kay plot and counterplot, questions rise and fall like rockets. V2 will keep you pinned on a compelling trajectory.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Harris captures the real nature of war. Gripping.' BEN MACINTYRE 'Delivers one hell of a punch' DAMIAN LEWIS's Books of the Year, EXPRESS 'Harris is delivering a warning about toxic futility and the ferocious propaganda needed to fuel it. His timing is, unlike the workings of the rockets he writes about, impeccable.' EVENING STANDARD 'Robert Harris is at the peak of his storytelling power with V2; it takes you all the way back to the pleasure of reading Enigma.' PATRICK NEALE 'The king of the page-turning thriller.' THE i 'Second World War buffs will enjoy Robert Harris's V2.' INDEPENDENT 'V2's portrait of a battered and weary London is not without a certain 2020 resonance.' TOM HOLLAND Bestseller in the UK, Sunday Times, September 2020

About the Author :
Robert Harris is the author of fifteen bestselling novels- the Cicero Trilogy - Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator - Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index, An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Conclave, Munich, The Second Sleep, V2 and Act of Oblivion. His work has been translated into forty languages and nine of his books have been adapted for cinema and television. He lives in West Berkshire with his wife, Gill Hornby.

Review :
A riveting read . . . with a corker of a twist. [I]mmersive and engaging. V2 is a stunning achievement; a gripping page-turner that remains highly thought-provoking. An immersive thriller set against a tense historical backdrop . . . For all its pace - you will zip through it in no time - the rewards are in the meta-story. But Harris's deceptively effortless prose means you barely notice. The effect is one of total immersion: you can feel the cold, taste the bacon sandwiches and imagine the trolleys squeaking across the floor. I want to be the first to say it: Robert Harris scores a direct hit with V2. I was enthralled. Harris renders the historical detail with his customary verisimilitude. Harris's books are always supremely readable - he has practically trademarked the term 'master storyteller'. This is a lively read, as propulsive as the rockets of the title, and it masterfully captures the bleak, jaded atmosphere of the Second World War's death throes. Robert Harris has always been ingenious at finding ways to write about the Second World War [...] It's highly readable . . . thrillingly tense. Harris finds the poetry in physics and the soul in engineering. He makes the V2s come to life as vividly as any of his human characters . . . His prose can be wonderfully vivid... Harris has the great gift of readability; there is no living novelist whose books I am likelier to gobble up in one sitting. [An] astonishingly precise novel... With its tense plot and familiar characters, some readers may anticipate the novel's own parabolic curve. But this means it offers the satisfactions we expect. Spies and informers lurk. Period details are piquant, but not overdone . . . Above all there's suspense . . . V2 will keep you pinned on a compelling trajectory. Harris returns to form with this exhilarating fusion of fact and fiction.