Jonathan Barnes

Jonathan Barnes on Four Tantalising Debut Novels

Mr Chartwell

Fig Tree 224pp £12.99 order from our bookshop

What if the depressive fits that assailed Winston Churchill throughout his life, and to which he gave the lugubrious euphemism ‘the black dog’, possessed a literal, physical existence? What if the politician’s illness took the form of a ‘wild and colossal’ hound? And what if that rough beast could speak?

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