The Splendid and the Vile

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The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz – an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis.

In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless." It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it's also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill's prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest, and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports – some released only recently – Larson provides a new lens on London's darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill, his family, and the advisers in Churchill's "Secret Circle," to whom he turns in the hardest moments.