Robert is a dashing upper-class Englishman, Daniel a proud Jewish communist. They are comrades at the Battle of El Alamein in 1942, fighting together in North Africa and Italy as part of the victorious Eighth Army. Despite their vastly different backgrounds and opposing political beliefs, they form a deep bond in the crucible of global conflict.

Fourteen years later, the two men meet again at the time of the Suez Crisis, with the Soviet Union preparing to invade Hungary. Robert, unhappily married to a beautiful artist and with a scheming aristocratic mistress, is a Foreign Office official, while Daniel is a journalist on the communist Daily Worker. The friends find their loyalties – to one another and to their country – torn apart as the world teeters on the brink of yet another war.

At once epic and intimate, Levin's War is a novel about love, disillusionment and betrayal set against the backdrop of the crumbling British Empire. Spanning continents and decades, the novel examines how enduring values – both personal and political – can withstand the tumultuous tide of twentieth-century history.