As MPs gather in Canberra for the opening of the 46th parliament, there’s been a reopening of wounds within the Coalition about last year’s leadership coup against Malcolm Turnbull. Journalist and former political staffer Niki Savva has written Plots and Prayers, which is in bookstores from Monday. It’s a very fine history of the chaotic events of last August, with many of the main protagonists recounting their actions in on-the-record interviews. Here are five of the more memorable insights and moments from the book.

The Dutton machine: keystone cops

The week the government broke last August felt completely insane. What wasn’t so clear at the time, largely because of how fast things were moving, was Peter Dutton’s coup was a complete shambles. Turnbull forced Dutton out of the shadows by calling a spill early in the week. Various protagonists recount stories indicating what a mess things were behind the scenes, including departing ministers Steve Ciobo and Michael Keenan, but two young rightwingers involved in the offensive certainly don’t hold back in their accounts of events to Savva. Andrew Hastie says Dutton lacked a strong lieutenant, at least until Mathias Cormann joined the frontline mid-week. “The chief protagonists are completely separated from the backbench. It all added to the confusion and chaos. There’s only so much you can do with Whatsapp,” Hastie says. Victorian senator James Paterson agrees, describing Dutton’s campaign as “completely half-arsed”. There was no one in charge, no campaign manager, no alternative policy. “It was shambolic.”

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Morrison’s advice to Turnbull over the week

While the Dutton offensive flailed, the core group of Morrison supporters rallied with great precision to enhance the interests of their candidate. More of that shortly but, first, the book provides insight into the advice Scott Morrison gave Turnbull as the leadership crisis spiralled. The first thing he said to him, according to Savva’s account, was don’t bring on a leadership spill. (“How many times did you ever see John Howard call a spill? Never.”) The second was to try and persuade Cormann not to defect. Then, on Thursday, after the parliament was adjourned, Morrison told Turnbull and Christopher Pyne to not have the final party room vote on the Friday, and send everyone home to their electorates instead. Morrison is quoted recounting a conversation he had with Pyne and Julie Bishop. “Why don’t we just go home? We’re back in a fortnight, and we’ll fight this, slug this thing out over the next two weeks. Yes, it’ll be ugly and messy and horrible, and all the rest of it, but, you know, we can.” Morrison said MPs would have been punished by their constituents if they’d left at that point, and that wouldn’t have disrupted the Dutton advance. But Turnbull thought it was impossible to pull back. Savva then has Craig Laundy narrate what happened next. Having put his point of view, Morrison then said: “I’ve gotta go.” Laundy notes the speed with which Morrison left the room.

The activity of the Morrison crew

Morrison has prided himself on gaining the Liberal leadership with clean hands. But Plots and Prayers documents the work of his supporters in maximising opportunity for their candidate. There are intricate accounts of Morrison’s numbers men doing numbers, and voting tactically in the ballots to ensure their bloke was best positioned to prevail. Laundy witnessed some of this activity with growing trepidation and fed it back to Turnbull’s senior advisers. Turnbull’s principal private secretary, Sally Cray, told Laundy: “We can’t tell Malcolm. It will completely kill him.” All pretty interesting, but perhaps the most important perspective on this is Dutton’s, given both Morrison and Dutton both remain in the parliament, and need to find their level. Savva says Dutton was suspicious of the Morrison clique’s positioning, particularly ahead of the fist spill on the Tuesday which caught him by surprise. Dutton is quoted pointing out that the whip, Nola Marino, was given a heads up about what Turnbull was planning. One of Marino’s deputies was Bert van Manen, part of the Morrison Bible group. Dutton said Van Manen could have telegraphed Turnbull’s plans to the Morrison camp: Stuart Robert, Alex Hawke, Steve Irons. Dutton tells Savva he has no proof of the way they voted in the first ballot, but he has “no doubt” they did not vote for Turnbull, and in fact voted for him in that first ballot, which undermined Turnbull and intensified the crisis. Robert told Savva after the first spill he told colleagues that Turnbull was finished, as the author puts it, in “conversations that were very damaging to Turnbull and conversely helpful to Morrison”.

Fog of war becomes a fog of grief

One of the standout chapters in the book, just at a human level, is the journey of Victorian Mitch Fifield. Political tragics will remember that Fifield joined with fellow senators Cormann and Michaelia Cash in publicly defecting from Turnbull in a funereal press conference. Fifield entered the Dutton column on the Tuesday after Turnbull spilled the leadership, believing Turnbull was done. But this news fractured his inner friendship circle – the Speaker, Tony Smith, was horrified, as was fellow frontbencher Kelly O’Dwyer. According to the account in the book, Smith told Fifield that giving in to those determined to destroy Turnbull was both morally wrong and politically stupid – the voters would be appalled, and Dutton would be an electoral disaster, particularly in Victoria. There’s a slightly surreal moment where Fifield walks into the Dutton situation room and sees the coterie of dissidents who had worked to destroy Turnbull’s prime ministership. “His brain began to throb. Did he really want to be aligned with them?” Savva says in her recount. After agonising, Fifield switched his vote to Morrison.

‘We prayed that righteousness would exalt the nation’

On the Friday Morrison became prime minister, he told his receptionist, Mel, to text his family and ask them to pray for him. Before he left the office, he prayed with his colleague and friend Stuart Robert. Savva asked Robert to tell her how they passed that time alone. “We prayed that righteousness would exalt the nation,” Robert said. Savva asked Robert if righteousness would manifest itself in the form of a Morrison victory? “Righteousness would mean the right person had won,” Robert replied.