For his latest trick, Robert Harris novelizes a World War I British sex scandal

In his acknowledgments at the end of his 2013 novel An Officer and a Spy, Robert Harris thanked his wife for sharing a home over the years with “successive waves of Nazis, codebreakers, KGB men, hedge fund managers, ghostwriters and assorted ancient Romans.” For that book, Harris gave additional houseroom to the key players in the Dreyfus affair. Since then, the British author has opened his door to a host of other colorful individuals, from cardinals conniving to elect the right pope to V2 rocket scientists targeting London with their “Vengeance Weapons” to English fugitives, or “regicides,” wanted for the murder of King Charles I.