The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher

In Hilary Mantel's mischievous story a knock at the door announces an unexpected visitor who has plans to alter the course of history as we know it. Harriet Walter reads.

The stories selected from Hilary Mantel's collection The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher for Book at Bedtime are dark and sharply observed. From the middle-class woman with powerful feelings about a former prime minister; the woman trapped in her apartment in Jeddah, to the two young girls who during the heat of the summer holidays venture into forbidden territory, each of the stories deal with psychological unease and at the same time are wickedly witty.

Hilary Mantel is the author of thirteen books. She is the first and only writer to have won the Man Booker Prize twice for her last two historical novels, Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies.

Harriet Walter is the reader.
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.