‘THE NOBEL FOUNDATION OF STOCKHOLM IS PLEASED TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU HAVE TODAY BEEN VOTED THIS YEARS NOBEL PRIZE STOP THE AWARD CEREMONY WILL TAKE PLACE IN STOCKHOLM’… Six people receive the cable of notification; men and women for whom the only common factor is the Nobel citation-‘for researches in support of humanitarian ideals’.

These are the major actors in Irving Wallace’s exciting, behind-the-headlines story of the Nobel Prize, five men and a woman elected to receive the supreme palm of mankind’s honours, to be fêted as almost superhuman beings, their achievements to be discussed and applauded, their private lives to be spotlighted in the blinding glare of international publicity. As they converge on Stockholm, The Prize evolves into an explosive evocation of the maze of political intrigue and personal conflict that surrounds and seeks to influence the awards; of the pressures brought to bear on the juries that decide the awards; of international ploy and counter-ploy for prestige in the Cold War; of men and women with their own private stakes in the greatest prize of all.