If Wallis Simpson had not died on the operating table in December 1936, Edward VIII would not be King of England three years later. He would have abdicated for "the woman he loves, " but now, the throne is his. If Henry Bannister's car had not careered off the Colombo back-roads in the summer before the war, Cynthia Kirkpatrick would never have found out about The Faction.

It is autumn 1939, and everything in history is just as it was. Except, that is, for the identity of the king in Buckingham Palace-and the existence of a secret organization operating at the highest levels of society and determined to derail the war effort against Nazi Germany. The Windsor Faction is an ingenious exercise in what-might-have-been that assembles a cast of real and imaginary characters in a horrifyingly plausible re-invention of history.