No Friends, No Enemies

A fascinating piece of writing that leaves its echoes in the reader's hearts, this is a starkly honest work about the war of ideologies fought between the East and the West in the early sixties. What the western nations were up against  and how they prevailed has been vividly portrayed. Mandeep Rai has pulled no punches in this historical novel and the triumphs and failures have been glaringly projected, including the missed opportunities of history.

The reader lives with the tension of the times as first the Berlin crisis and then the Cuban missile crisis unfolds. The complexities and contradictions of the era are brought out by the interaction and confrontation between the main political figures, who are all important characters: Nikita Khruschev, JFK, Harold Macmillan and Charles de Gaulle. The reader is left gasping as, against all odds, President Kennedy emerges triumphant in the Cuban missile crisis.