Summer, 1939.

The remarkable events that occurred between the Nazi-Soviet pact and the German army's eventual invasion of Poland on 1 September were neither foreseeable nor inevitable. Gathering Storm is the riveting new account of this most precarious and fraught race against time.

In a countdown covering the ten days from the aftermath of the Nazi-Soviet pact on 24 August 1939 to the outbreak of war on 3 September, Mike Jones' gripping narrative uses a wide range of source material - many completely new - to provide a fresh, global retelling of events, anchored by the deteriorating relations between Britain and Germany.

Penetrating the halls of power during the slide towards catastrophe, The Gathering Storm is a stunning new depiction of Prime Minister Chamberlain's Downing Street in this moment of crisis, the manoeuvrings of the Foreign Secretary Viscount Halifax, President Franklin Roosevelt, King Leopold of Belgium, King Emmanuel of Italy, as well as the opposing machinations of Hitler, Ribbentrop, Hess, Göring and Mussolini - and of course the stark voices of Chamberlain and Churchill.