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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast

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Speaker 1: from newstalks'b twenty.

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Speaker 2: One to twelve on Newstalks. The'd Be. Katherine Rains has

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Speaker 2: two reads for us this weekend, for anyone who is

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Speaker 2: not entertained by the voluminous sport available for us this weekend.

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Speaker 2: Kilder Catherine Morning Jack.

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Speaker 3: Might be hard to pull away from this.

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Speaker 2: M Yeah, it might be, but look, you know, if

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Speaker 2: there are little breaks between competition, maybe you can, maybe

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Speaker 2: you can find some space. So tell us about Kingmaker

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Speaker 2: by Sonya Parnell.

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Speaker 3: So this is about a woman called Pamela Harriman and

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Speaker 3: she was born into this very privileged but cash strap

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Speaker 3: family in the UK and they sold up their Belgravier

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Speaker 3: mansion and moved to Dorset, and her grandfather, who happened

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Speaker 3: to be the tenth Lord of Dignity, built this fifty

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Speaker 3: room mansion and he was quite eccentric, so he built

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Speaker 3: it without bathrooms because he considered them completely disgusting. So

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Speaker 3: this interesting kind of upbringing that she had, and she

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Speaker 3: was very adventurous and energetic, and she craved escape from

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Speaker 3: DRSA and the loneliness, and she decided to get married

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Speaker 3: at the age of nineteen to a man only known

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Speaker 3: for a couple of weeks, and that turned out to

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Speaker 3: be a guy called Random Churchill, and he was not

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Speaker 3: particularly well liked in society, and he was a bit

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Speaker 3: of a catastrophe. But actually what was really interesting about

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Speaker 3: him is his parents were Winston and Clementine Churchill, and

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Speaker 3: she took to them immediately, and she was often part

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Speaker 3: of their political world and a really trusted member of

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Speaker 3: Winston Churchills in a circle at Chequers and Whitehall, particularly

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Speaker 3: during the war years. And her husband was an alcoholic

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Speaker 3: and a womanizer and completely lousy husband, and they had

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Speaker 3: one son together, but their marriage ended eventually in divorce.

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Speaker 3: But her early role with the Churchills and this intelligent

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Speaker 3: gathering intermediary between the British war governor and the Americans,

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Speaker 3: and she seduced a number of high profile names, and

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Speaker 3: she became really pivotal in this political world events and

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Speaker 3: sought after and triumphed by some and ridiculed by others.

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Speaker 3: And war sort of suspended a lot of the rurules

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Speaker 3: the things that were going on, and she didn't really

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Speaker 3: concern herself with it, and she managed to amass this

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Speaker 3: wealth and trust as a woman who knew things and

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Speaker 3: the right people you needed to notice solve problems. And

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Speaker 3: she has this very interesting life. But years later in

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Speaker 3: her life she marries this guy called Averrol Harriman, who

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Speaker 3: was an American politician and you were Secretary of State

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Speaker 3: for Truman, and she begins this crusade to actually help

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Speaker 3: the Democratic Party work to regain control of Congress and

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Speaker 3: nineteen ninety two fascinating. She was the force behind Bill

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Speaker 3: Clinton actually being nominated and eventually elected as president. And

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Speaker 3: then she's made ambassador of France at the age of

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Speaker 3: seventy three, where apparently she was very honorable in that

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Speaker 3: role and played a pivotal role in the US and

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Speaker 3: NATO Bosnia Serbian conflict. And so she has this life

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Speaker 3: that's amazing, and in the end she's almost bankrupt due

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Speaker 3: to poor financial decisions and exchange from children and conflict

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Speaker 3: over their state. But you have all of this detail

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Speaker 3: and political and royal names and every name you can

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Speaker 3: think of in the last one hundred years of political

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Speaker 3: knowledge and people and these remarks cable contexts, and this

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Speaker 3: fascination with powerful men and people and politics, and it's

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Speaker 3: just really interesting. And I've never really heard about her

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Speaker 3: and you know her influence in this time and yeah,

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Speaker 3: she's a fascinating woman.

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Speaker 2: She sounds to me like you know how you get

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Speaker 2: asked those things like three people you'd invite to dinner

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Speaker 2: and everyone always says, oh, Boma, Well it's not a

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Speaker 2: bad answer. But she's she's the sort of person you

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Speaker 2: want to come to dinner, someone who's like lived a life,

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Speaker 2: you know, like lived a full kind of you know,

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Speaker 2: stretch of experiences. You know, she's she's got a really

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Speaker 2: diverse experience at sounds absolutely amazing.

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Speaker 3: And stories to tell.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, cool.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So that's King Maker by Sonya Pernell. You've also read

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Speaker 2: The Valley by Chris Hammer.

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Speaker 3: So this is the fourth in the series which featured

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Speaker 3: these two detectives now Bukeen and Ivan Lukik, and they

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Speaker 3: according to this case when it's very controversial local entrepreneur

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Speaker 3: middle of the Australian busher guy called Wolfgang Bernstein has

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Speaker 3: found murdered on the banks of the river and these

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Speaker 3: old conflicts start to come back in and he'd been

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Speaker 3: planning to use this old gold mine which had once

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Speaker 3: been the center of this small local community and for

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Speaker 3: ecotourism and development, and not everybody in the small town

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Speaker 3: is completely on board with his ideas. But here's this

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Speaker 3: man of vision, and he's been successful, and he had

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Speaker 3: brought fast internet into the town, and he was looking

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Speaker 3: at this power plant that would generate power, and he's

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Speaker 3: rumored to be have been tabbling in funding a local

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Speaker 3: political candidate as well, And so the possibilities for who

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Speaker 3: could have murdered him are quite numerous. So when the

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Speaker 3: detectives Ivan and Now are sent to investigate, they find

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Speaker 3: this past encroaching on the present, and this investigation and

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Speaker 3: this old gold mine that some locals have tried to

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Speaker 3: open thirty years ago, and a robbery that had happened

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Speaker 3: a couple of years before, and what happened in this

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Speaker 3: valley all those years ago, and then randomly the detective

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Speaker 3: now her mother has got something to do with it

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Speaker 3: as well. And there's this police and political corruption and

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Speaker 3: these different timelines and perspectives layered into the story. In

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Speaker 3: decades of secrets and lies become exposed. And I really

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Speaker 3: like the writing style because as you get into it,

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Speaker 3: there's so many scenarios of what might have happened, might

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Speaker 3: not have happened, and you want to get all of

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Speaker 3: the answers quite quickly, but this is very complex mystery

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Speaker 3: with lots of surprise and suspense.

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Speaker 2: Yeah great, okay, cool. That's The Valley by Chris Hammer.

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Speaker 2: Catherine's first book again is A Kingmaker by Sonya Pernell,

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Speaker 2: and both of those will be on the News talk

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Speaker 2: EDB website. New music from Kim before You're Next. Right now,

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Speaker 2: it is sixteen to twelve.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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Speaker 1: to Newstalk z EDB from nine am Saturday, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio