As the victorious Eighth Army sweeps through North Africa in 1942, fellow soldiers Robert Upton and Daniel Levin forge an unlikely friendship, one that overcomes rank and politics, class and creed. It is the kind of bond only war can build, an affinity between a member of the upper class and a Jewish communist who opposes everything his comrade represents.
Fourteen years later, that relationship is tested. When the two men meet again, Robert is a Foreign Office official, unhappily married to a beautiful artist and with a scheming aristocratic mistress; Daniel is a journalist on the Daily Worker, his faith in communism fraying by the day. Meanwhile, the world teeters on the brink of yet another war. President Nasser is asserting his claim over the Suez Canal and the Soviet Union is preparing to invade Hungary. The peace they fought for is shattering and so, it turns out, is everything they thought they knew about each other.
At once epic and intimate, Levin's War is a novel about love, disillusionment and betrayal, set against the backdrop of the crumbling British Empire. Spanning continents and decades, it asks what enduring values – both personal and political – truly cost and whether they can withstand the tumultuous tide of twentieth-century history.