Novel Publicity Blog Tour Book Review: The King Whisperers By Kerwin Swint

‘King Whisperers’ are people in a position to influence history. If your history lessons were anything like mine, you will have slowly discovered over the years that most of what you were taught was, at best, prejudiced and at worst factually incorrect.  This is why this book is so important.  We have some re-learning to do if we are going to use knowledge of the past to understand the present.

Influencing global events

Kerwin Swint is the history teacher I would have liked to have had when I was young.  Right from the start, his easy and well informed style grabs your attention and holds it for 300 pages.  We explore the how "king whisperers" changed the course of global events in every era, brilliantly using what we now call ‘power politics’, espionage and inside knowledge. Many were driven by passionate beliefs and positive values but sadly the most interesting are of course the ‘rebels’ and the evil plotters behind the throne.

The King Whisperers is one of the best researched books I have read in a long time (when was the last time you read a book with over thirty pages of end notes?)  Kerwin Swint makes good use of case study examples, from the ancient world to recent times and includes many significant historical events, as well as some that are less well known.

Good to be Machiavellian

I particularly enjoyed learning about “Old Nick” Machiavelli – surely one of the most mis-represented writers of all time?  ‘Machiavellian’ is generally understood to mean ruthless, deceitful and manipulative behaviour (and I learnt that Machiavellianism is also a psychological diagnosis for a personality disorder characterized by manipulativeness). Anyone reading The King Whisperers will never use his name in that sense again.

Kerwin Swint would have easily been able to fill the book with this captivating explanation of Machiavelli’s ideas but moves on to the more obscure (to me at least) Ibrahim Pasha, who started out as a humble slave and became ‘whisperer in chief’ to the ruler of the Ottoman Empire - Suleiman the Magnificent.  We go on to learn that Hitler wasn’t the biggest mass murderer or even in the top two of the twentieth century  (it was ‘Chairman’ Mao Zedong - with Joseph Vissarionovich not far behind).

Topical relevance of The King Whisperers

The King Whisperers is certain to stimulate renewed interest in what really happened ‘behind the scenes’ of world events. It raises some big questions about contemporary politics and leaves us wanting more. If you are wondering how relevant all this really is to current events, Kerwin Swint is asking 'was Saddam Hussein evil?' and ‘What about Osama bin Laden?’  

Dr. Kerwin Swint

Give-Away Phrase:  The Writing Desk secret word for the book give-away is THEIR. Learn more about the give-away and enter to win 1 of 3 copies on the official King Whisperers blog tour page. 

Your vote matters: If you like this review please vote for The Writing Desk in the traffic-breaker poll for this tour. The blog with the most votes wins a free promotional 'twitterview' and a special winner’s badge. You can vote in the poll by visiting  The official King Whisperers blog tour page and scrolling all the way to the end - thank you!


You may like to see the Goodreads Q&A with Kerwin Swint   for a discussion of The King Whisperers, including questions from the official book club guide, the author and his previous works.


Video trailers for the King Whisperers: