From a bestselling novelist with an unrivalled insight into the workings of power comes a compelling new novel exploring Winston Churchill's remarkable journey from the wilderness to No 10 Downing Street at the beginning of World War II.

• WINSTON'S WAR is a masterful blending of imagination and compelling fact that places the reader at the right hand of the most momentous events in our history.

Saturday 1 October 1938. Winston Churchill has reached his lowest point. Reviled, mocked, accused of being nothing more than a drunken warmonger. Now his arch-rival, Neville Chamberlain, has done a deal with Hitler that destroys everything Churchill has fought for.

But the world is about to change. Churchill is visited by a young and unkempt BBC journalist who rebukes him for being defeatist. It proves to be a turning point. Churchill grows to like his young visitor, who rekindles his determination to fight on. What Churchill doesn't know is that the man from the BBC is also a leading Soviet spy. His name is Guy Burgess.

Now Michael Dobbs, one of the country's most acclaimed novelists, throws brilliant fresh light upon Churchill's relationship with Burgess and the twenty months of conspiracy, chance and outright treachery that propelled Churchill from outcast to messiah.