Mr. Chartwell : A Novel

It’s July 1964. In bed at home in Kent, Winston Churchill is waking up. There’s a visitor in the room, someone he hasn’t seen for a while, a dark, mute bulk, watching him with tortured concentration. It’s Mr. Chartwell.

In her terraced house in Battersea, Esther Hammerhans, young, vulnerable and alone, goes to answer the door to her new lodger. Through the glass she sees a vast silhouette the size of a mattress. It’s Mr. Chartwell.

Mr. Chartwell is a huge, black dog.

Charismatic and dangerously seductive, Mr. Chartwell unites the eminent statesman at the end of his career and the vulnerable young woman. But can they withstand Mr. Chartwell’s strange, powerful charms and his stranglehold on their lives?

In this utterly original, moving, funny and exuberant novel, Rebecca Hunt explores how two unlikely lives collide as Mr. Chartwell’s motives are revealed to be far darker and deeper than they seem.