Catherine Raynes: Kingmaker and The Valley

Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue by Sonia Purnell  

When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes – on both sides of the Atlantic – remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today. 
 
At age 20 Churchill’s beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weapon” during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy’s ‘uncrowned king’ on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. 
 
Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. 
 
There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman’s rightful place at the heart of history. 

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The Valley by Chris Hammer  

Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic are back – and Nell is thrown into her most emotionally fraught investigation yet. 
 
A controversial entrepreneur is murdered in a remote mountain valley, but this is no ordinary case. Ivan and Nell are soon contending with cowboy lawyers, conmen, bullion thieves and grave robbers. 
 
But it's when Nell discovers the victim is a close blood relative that the past begins to take on a looming significance. 
 
What did take place in The Valley all those years ago? What was Nell's mother doing there, and what was her connection to troubled young police officer Simmons Burnside? And why do the police hierarchy insist Ivan and Nell stay with the case despite an obvious conflict of interest? 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from newstalks'b twenty.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
One to twelve on Newstalks. The'd Be. Katherine Rains has
two reads for us this weekend, for anyone who is
not entertained by the voluminous sport available for us this weekend.
Kilder Catherine Morning Jack.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Might be hard to pull away from this.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
M Yeah, it might be, but look, you know, if
there are little breaks between competition, maybe you can, maybe
you can find some space. So tell us about Kingmaker
by Sonya Parnell.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
So this is about a woman called Pamela Harriman and
she was born into this very privileged but cash strap
family in the UK and they sold up their Belgravier
mansion and moved to Dorset, and her grandfather, who happened
to be the tenth Lord of Dignity, built this fifty
room mansion and he was quite eccentric, so he built
it without bathrooms because he considered them completely disgusting. So
this interesting kind of upbringing that she had, and she

(00:57):
was very adventurous and energetic, and she craved escape from
DRSA and the loneliness, and she decided to get married
at the age of nineteen to a man only known
for a couple of weeks, and that turned out to
be a guy called Random Churchill, and he was not
particularly well liked in society, and he was a bit
of a catastrophe. But actually what was really interesting about

(01:17):
him is his parents were Winston and Clementine Churchill, and
she took to them immediately, and she was often part
of their political world and a really trusted member of
Winston Churchills in a circle at Chequers and Whitehall, particularly
during the war years. And her husband was an alcoholic

(01:37):
and a womanizer and completely lousy husband, and they had
one son together, but their marriage ended eventually in divorce.
But her early role with the Churchills and this intelligent
gathering intermediary between the British war governor and the Americans,
and she seduced a number of high profile names, and
she became really pivotal in this political world events and

(01:58):
sought after and triumphed by some and ridiculed by others.
And war sort of suspended a lot of the rurules
the things that were going on, and she didn't really
concern herself with it, and she managed to amass this
wealth and trust as a woman who knew things and
the right people you needed to notice solve problems. And
she has this very interesting life. But years later in
her life she marries this guy called Averrol Harriman, who

(02:20):
was an American politician and you were Secretary of State
for Truman, and she begins this crusade to actually help
the Democratic Party work to regain control of Congress and
nineteen ninety two fascinating. She was the force behind Bill
Clinton actually being nominated and eventually elected as president. And
then she's made ambassador of France at the age of
seventy three, where apparently she was very honorable in that

(02:42):
role and played a pivotal role in the US and
NATO Bosnia Serbian conflict. And so she has this life
that's amazing, and in the end she's almost bankrupt due
to poor financial decisions and exchange from children and conflict
over their state. But you have all of this detail
and political and royal names and every name you can
think of in the last one hundred years of political

(03:04):
knowledge and people and these remarks cable contexts, and this
fascination with powerful men and people and politics, and it's
just really interesting. And I've never really heard about her
and you know her influence in this time and yeah,
she's a fascinating woman.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
She sounds to me like you know how you get
asked those things like three people you'd invite to dinner
and everyone always says, oh, Boma, Well it's not a
bad answer. But she's she's the sort of person you
want to come to dinner, someone who's like lived a life,
you know, like lived a full kind of you know,
stretch of experiences. You know, she's she's got a really
diverse experience at sounds absolutely amazing.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
And stories to tell.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, cool.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
So that's King Maker by Sonya Pernell. You've also read
The Valley by Chris Hammer.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
So this is the fourth in the series which featured
these two detectives now Bukeen and Ivan Lukik, and they
according to this case when it's very controversial local entrepreneur
middle of the Australian busher guy called Wolfgang Bernstein has
found murdered on the banks of the river and these
old conflicts start to come back in and he'd been
planning to use this old gold mine which had once

(04:08):
been the center of this small local community and for
ecotourism and development, and not everybody in the small town
is completely on board with his ideas. But here's this
man of vision, and he's been successful, and he had
brought fast internet into the town, and he was looking
at this power plant that would generate power, and he's
rumored to be have been tabbling in funding a local

(04:30):
political candidate as well, And so the possibilities for who
could have murdered him are quite numerous. So when the
detectives Ivan and Now are sent to investigate, they find
this past encroaching on the present, and this investigation and
this old gold mine that some locals have tried to
open thirty years ago, and a robbery that had happened
a couple of years before, and what happened in this
valley all those years ago, and then randomly the detective

(04:53):
now her mother has got something to do with it
as well. And there's this police and political corruption and
these different timelines and perspectives layered into the story. In
decades of secrets and lies become exposed. And I really
like the writing style because as you get into it,
there's so many scenarios of what might have happened, might
not have happened, and you want to get all of
the answers quite quickly, but this is very complex mystery

(05:15):
with lots of surprise and suspense.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah great, okay, cool. That's The Valley by Chris Hammer.
Catherine's first book again is A Kingmaker by Sonya Pernell,
and both of those will be on the News talk
EDB website. New music from Kim before You're Next. Right now,
it is sixteen to twelve.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to Newstalk z EDB from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio