THE MADNESS OF JULY by James Naughtie (Head of Zeus)

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BBC Radio 4's James Naughtie introduces his debut work of fiction, THE MADNESS OF JULY, a political thriller unfolding in the end game of the Cold War.

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This is a sophisticated thriller about loyalty, survival and family rivalry deep in the Cold War, drawing on decades of experience as a political insider in Westminster and Washington.

It is a sweltering July in the mid-1970s, and for Will Flemyng, foreign office minister, the temperature is rising with each passing hour. A mysterious death has exposed secret passions in government, bringing on a political crisis that will draw him back into a familiar world of danger and deceit.

For Flemyng has a past. He was trained as a spy for a life behind enemy lines and now he's compelled to go back. In the course of one long weekend he must question all his loyalties -- to his friends, his rivals and to his own two brothers.

Only then can he expose the truth in London and Washington. When he has walked through the fire.

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I'm James Naughtie and I've done something which I've always wanted to do, which is to write a thriller, a thriller set in the world of politics with a good dose of diplomacy and espionage thrown in.

THE MADNESS OF JULY I hope is a page-turning book, an exciting book, and a book that lifts the lid really on a public life which can never be separated entirely from the private life of the main characters.

It's a story that evolves in London in the mid-seventies in six sweltering days towards the end of Summer, when politics seems to go mad for a while, and where the main character - Will Flemyng, who is a foreign office minister - carries a secret, and finds himself walking into the fire.

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