Kompromat: A Brexit Affair

by Stanley Johnson

Overview

2016. The world is on the brink of crisis. Who could predict how events would play out?

In this satirical thriller, Stanley Johnson, former MEP and father to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, just might have.

‘Perfect beach material.’ Independent

In Britain, Prime Minister Jeremy Hartley is fighting a referendum nobody thinks he will lose.

In the USA, brash showman Ronald Craig is fighting a Presidential Election nobody thinks he can win.

In the USSR, Igor Popov, the Russian President, is using both events to achieve his own malevolent ends.

Together, these three men will change the course of the world forever.

In his brilliant new thriller, Stanley Johnson, environmentalist and former politician, has written an alternative account of the seismic events that took place on both sides of the Atlantic. There's greed, corruption, lies... what could possibly go wrong?

'Brilliant.' The Sunday Times

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786072467
Publisher:	Oneworld Publications
Publication date:	10/10/2017
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

A former MEP and father to the PM, Stanley Johnson has written widely in both fiction and non-fiction.

Stanley Johnson recently starred in ITV’s I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! and is taking part in the second reality series of The Real Marigold Hotel. He was one of the first presenters of More 4’s The Last Word, and has appeared on Have I Got News For You, The One Show, Pointless and The Fake News Programme.

Editorial Reviews

‘An enjoyable satire...while still being all too scarily believable.’

Crime Novel Reader

‘There are some novelists who, by instincts or study, understand perfectly the independent components of a thriller. Stanley Johnson is one of them.’

Daily Telegraph

‘This is a brilliant alternative account of recent and current events.’

The Chronicle

‘Perfect beach material.’

Independent Whig.

"A different sort of ambiguity propels English author Stanley Johnson’s outrageous political-espionage satire KOMPROMAT, a rollicking work of fiction that sets conniving caricatures of real-life figures amid a diorama of recent world events.
Front and center is Ronald C. Craig, the “proud and manly” American TV-show host and entrepreneur running for president of the United States, who tweets and tub-thumps such campaign catchphrases as “Build the Wall!” and “Drain the Swamp!” Then there is the jet-flying Russian president Igor Popov (“five eight in height [with] thinning hair, carefully brushed back to cover a bald spot”), whose high-profile mission to save the world’s tigers serves as a mask for his high-tech meddling in elections from Germany to England to America. Not to be overlooked are various Chinese government operatives bent on persuading England, through fair means and foul, to remain in the European Union.
Our witness to the main players’ shenanigans is British cabinet minister Edward Barnard, who, in the course of his globe-trotting duties, survives an attempted assassination by means of a poisonous Australian spider, and the leaking of a video purporting to show him cavorting with two Russian prostitutes. 'Classic Kompromat stuff,' a British Secret Service man scolds Barnard regarding the latter. 'Ministers who go to Russia surely know the drill: don’t talk to strange blonde women in hotel lobbies. Don’t go upstairs with them. Above all, don’t go to bed with them.'
Mr. Johnson, a former member of the European Parliament and the father of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, clearly knows all the drills. The author of 25 earlier works of fiction and nonfiction, he has a lifetime’s expertise that adds comic credibility to a caper combining the antic action of Mad magazine’s old “Spy vs. Spy” cartoons with the gonzo humor of Carl Hiaasen."
— The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

'I wish we had been able to take this book into the jungle. Stanley's Kompromat is a superbly funny satire on recent events!'

ITV's Queen of the Jungle 2017 Georgia Toffolo ('Toff')

‘It’s brilliant and, who knows, maybe it’s true.’

Ken Livingstone

‘In its complex plotting and intrigue, Kompromat not only suggests that Russia was influencing the US election campaign, but behind the scenes bolstering the fortunes of the Leave campaign. Of course, Kompromat is an entertainment but Johnson is quite chuffed that some of his plot twists have proved prescient.’

Sydney Morning Herald

'A rollicking work of fiction that sets conniving caricatures of real-life figures amid a diorama of recent world events...Mr. Johnson, a former member of the European Parliament and the father of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, clearly knows all the drills. The author of 25 earlier works of fiction and nonfiction, he has a lifetime’s expertise that adds comic credibility to a caper combining the antic action of Mad magazine’s old "Spy vs. Spy" cartoons with the gonzo humor of Carl Hiaasen.'

Wall Street Journal

'Brilliant.'

The Sunday Times

'A rollicking work of fiction that sets conniving caricatures of real-life figures amid a diorama of recent world events...Mr. Johnson, a former member of the European Parliament and the father of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, clearly knows all the drills. The author of 25 earlier works of fiction and nonfiction, he has a lifetime’s expertise that adds comic credibility to a caper combining the antic action of Mad magazine’s old "Spy vs. Spy" cartoons with the gonzo humor of Carl Hiaasen.'

Wall Street Journal

‘Perfect beach material.’

Independent

‘This thriller has the makings of a gleeful romp through geopolitical skullduggery, but Johnson (The Commissioner) has laid out something that looks more like an alternative history for our grim and disrupted times.'

Publishers Weekly