The palace of enchantments

by Douglas Hurd

An ambitious Conservative Junior Minister, Edward Dunsford, seems to be doing all the right things in his bid to become Foreign Secretary. Until, that is, a moment's sentimental weakness precipitates his career into chaos, his party into crisis and his own marriage onto the rocks.'So skilfully do Hurd and Lamport expose Whitehall's nerve-ends that their dissection reveals more of the system's internal workings than all the outpourings of the political researchers thick on the Westminster beat' - Sunday Times

320 pages, Hardcover

First published April 4, 2013

About the author

Douglas Hurd, Baron (born 1930), is a British Conservative politician and novelist, who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major between 1979 and his retirement in 1995.

Born in Marlborough, Wiltshire, Hurd first entered parliament in February 1974, as MP for the Mid Oxfordshire constituency. His first government post was as Minister for Europe, and he served in several cabinet posts from 1984 onwards, including Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1984-85), Home Secretary (1985-89) and Foreign Secretary (1989-95). He stood unsuccessfully for the Conservative Party leadership in 1990 and retired from frontline politics during a cabinet re-shuffle in 1995.

In 1997, Hurd entered the House of Lords. Viewed as one of the Conservative Party's senior elder statesmen, he is a patron of the Tory Reform Group, and remains an active figure in public life. Hurd is a writer of political thrillers including The Image in the Water, and a collection of short stories in Ten Minutes to Turn the Devil.