The Last Witness: One man's fight for the truth and the conspiracy to silence him: From the creators of the award-winning BBC podcast, Buried

*WITH A FOREWORD FROM MICHAEL SHEEN*

'A book that will wake the world up to forever chemicals' - CHRIS PACKHAM

A dead witness.
A Hollywood star.
The conspiracy that leads to your blood...

The threat was anonymous. 'Don't you know...you're the last surviving witness?'

In 1967, the young lawyer Douglas Gowan saw something so disturbing in a Welsh farmer's field that he vowed to pursue the truth. In the years that followed, he was derided in parliament and hounded into witness protection, even alleging there was an attempt on his life. What did he know?

The Last Witness is the eye-opening account of one of the world's first-ever whistleblowers on forever chemicals - and the scandal that goes from a British farm, to abandoned American streets. It is a David v. Goliath battle involving an eccentric British gentleman and the American corporate giant Monsanto, spanning multi-million dollar court-cases, suitcases of cash and confrontations with organised crime.

Now, half-a-century later, a husband-and-wife duo have been given the witness's confidential evidence. It leads them to form an unlikely friendship with the film star Michael Sheen, who recorded the witness' deathbed tape. Soon the team find themselves knee-deep in toxic chemicals, chasing down gangs, going half mad with a question: could the chemicals be killing people today?

Now, since the release of a major podcast, new whistleblowers and victims have come forward to speak for the first time.

Part-true crime thriller, part-investigative expose, The Last Witness wrestles with science, scandal and truth, in order to bring to light an unseen, but simmering disaster.

• Publication date: 3 September 2026
• Page count: 288
• Dimensions: Height 162 mm; Width 242 mm; Thickness 28 mm
• Publisher: Bonnier Books Ltd
• Format: Hardback
• ISBN-13: 9781785129315