The Aachen Memorandum

When Dr Horatio Lestoq, All Souls Prize Fellow and freelance journalist, discovers the body of a 91-year-old Admiral in suspicious circumstances, he is soon on the trail of more than a murderer.

For there is a scandal which goes to the very heart of the United states of Europe – the corrupt, bureaucratic, xenophobic Euro-superstate which has, in the 30 years since the Aachen Referendum, almost snuffed out British national identity.

Buckingham Palace, now Attali House, is the regional headquarters of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The now-defunct Houses of Parliament have been renamed The Westminster Heritage, Amenity and Leisuredrome. Even Horatio’s namesake has been removed from his column in Delors Square.

Can the overweight, snobbish, lecherous, asthmatic, cowardly Lestoq – the most unlikely of heroes – stay one step ahead of his sinister pursuers? Is his new lover – Cleopatra Tallboys, the sexiest secret policewoman in Europol – all that she seems? Is it coincidental that William Mountbatten-Windsor, King of New Zealand and Pretender to his father’s former throne, should be visiting London? Will the ghastly truth emerge of how British independence was extinguished by the all-powerful European mega-state?

In this gripping fictional debut, the historian Andrew Roberts has created an Orwellian Britain that is a frightening possibility.

A thriller – and a warning to us all.