(click to see alternate covers)

The authors – from left to right – Clive Prince, Robert Brydon, Lynn Picknett and Stephen Prior

‘A cracking read with every intricate twist and turn expertly researched.’ Time Out

This is the first of a three-book collaboration, beginning in the late 1990s, between Lynn and Clive and the late Stephen Prior, together with Robert Brydon, who provided additional historical research.

Double Standards (2001) retells the story of how, in May 1941 Rudolf Hess flew single-handed and unarmed to Scotland, claiming to be bent on seeing the Duke of Hamilton to broker a peace deal between Nazi Germany and Britain.

Off course, he was unceremoniously arrested, dismissed - by both Hitler and Churchill - as insane, and remained a prisoner for the rest of his life. But this book asks, what is the truth about the extraordinary journey of Hitler's Deputy? Was he really insane? And did he really come with a peace deal that would have radically changed the future of the war?

Based on meticulously researched archival material, eyewitness accounts and the testimony of intelligence operatives, Double Standards reveals:

• Hess flew to Britain with Hitler's full knowledge - and acquiescence.
• A substantial peace party existed in Britain in 1941, including most of the aristocracy - and the Royal Family, a senior member of which was actually waiting for Hess to arrive.
• The prisoner known as 'Hess' who died in Spandau prison was probably a brain-washed double.
• The fate of the real Hess was inextricably linked to the mysterious death of the King's brother, the Duke of Kent, in a plane crash in Scotland in 1942.
• Winston Churchill manipulated the imprisonment of the real Hess to influence Hitler and change Britain's fortunes in the war.

Hess' peace mission was, in fact, not a marginal business at all, but a truly pivotal event. It raises many far-reaching questions not only about Hess, Hitler and the intentions of the Nazis, but also about Winston Churchill, the British ruling classes and the royal family.

Double Standards was serialised in the Mail on Sunday and it was televised in 2001 as Hitler and Hess by Sir David Frost’s David Paradine Productions for ITV and the History Channel.