Robert Harris

Robert Harris is an English columnist and journalistic correspondent (still active, writing riveting and timely pieces in major UK papers), is also a long-form writer whose books have all become international bestsellers. His bibliography at this writing runs to 20 books and screenplays.

He rose to prominence with Fatherland, rated by "The Economist" as the best modern alternative history novel ever written. In it, a murder mystery is set in 1962 Berlin with the Germans having won WWII. It was later made into a film for HBO and would be the first of his works to be rendered onto the screen, but not the last.

Selling Hitler was more reportage, an investigative look at the famously forged diary of Adolf Hitler and its subsequent journey from its dubious origins through its sale and eventually its denouncement.

Turning to an entirely different moment and subject he expressed his love for ancient Rome, and specifically the period at the end of the Republic as it transitioned to dictatorship with a gift to the world of a trilogy on the life of Cicero (Imperium (2006), Lustrum (2009), and Dictator (2015) which are, next only to Robert Graves' I, Claudius in their magnificence.

Enigma, a fictional book about the Bletchley Park code breakers in WWII, was also made into a film, and though coming to the screen is not necessarily the best indicator of literary quality, as most of what he writes is historical fiction novels, it is perhaps no unreasonable to assume that his attention to detail and accuracy leave little for Hollywood to improve upon.

An Officer and a Spy, one of his best historical fiction reads, is about the infamous Dreyfus affair in late 19th century France, and it is by far the best description of the affair and I make this claim having read almost the full catalog of fiction and non-fiction works on the subject.

Not limited to just historical fiction, his modern thriller set in high finance, The Fear Index (2011), was just as enjoyable as anything else on the scene and it brought serious questions about high-frequency trading and the use of AI's into public discourse.

There is not one of his works that I have not enjoyed, and I always eagerly await his next release. If I had to choose one author to give as a gift to anyone across the political and social spectrum and know it would be greatly appreciated, it would be him. His newest work (Winter - Spring 2017), which I have yet to read, is Conclave, is first in my book 'begging list'.