On August 9, 1974, the greatest political scandal of our times reached its climax with the resignation of Richard Nixon from the presidency of the United States. Never before had a president been forced to give up his office. It was a stunning conclusion to a series of events that for drama, fatefulness, and sheer improbability cannot be rivaled by fiction.

In Watergate, Fred Emery tells the whole story as it could never be told before. The book incorporates material drawn from unprecedented interviews with virtually all of the still-surviving participants, plus tapes and documents not available before. In fact, only now - as Watergate makes brilliantly clear - are we able to see exactly how and why Richard Nixon fell from power.

Elected by a tiny margin in 1968, Nixon was obsessed with the fear that he would be a one-term president. This, combined with the president's willingness - and that of his staff - to countenance "intelligence" operations against his opponents, gradually and inevitably led to "dirty tricks," bugging of telephones, and "Watergate" itself - a bungled attempt to plant bugs and copy documents in the offices of the Democratic National Committee in Washington's huge Watergate complex.

But the trail led straight back to the Oval Office. Just how the cover-up began, started to unravel, and finally broke wide open is a fascinating tale, especially when - as here - we see it from the inside. Dodging and floundering, trying one expedient after another, Nixon watches as his own men fall away under pressure, betray him, and, finally, leave him no choice but to resign or face impeachment.

Told as a narrative history, Watergate is a tale of extraordinary characters, from the unlikely undercover man G. Gordon Liddy (who specialized in demonstrating his willpower by charring his finger in a candle flame) to Sam Ervin, the determinedly old-fashioned senator whose televised committee hearings ultimately brought the whole mess before the public. There are dozens of minor figures - petty criminals, lawyers disdainful of the law, loyal followers and opportunists.

And, at the center, Richard Nixon himself. As Washington bureau chief for The Times of London during the entire Watergate period, Fred Emery covered every aspect of the story. Now, with the passage of two decades and access to many new facts, he is in a unique position to bring it to us whole - mysteries solved, gaps filled, the drama complete.