July Books 4) Farthing

[nwhyte]

4) Farthing, by Jo Walton / paperskyI almost literally couldn't put this down. Walton's setting is an alternate 1948, where Britain made peace with Germany in 1941 after Rudolf Hess's mission; and her viewpoint characters are a young aristocratic woman married to a Jew, and a homosexual Scotland Yard detective investigating a murder, as Britain slides into

Comments

[bellinghman]

As a possibly-one-day baronet myself (but it does require among others for the current baronet's son to predecease me, and given he's about 3 decades younger than me, that's unlikely), yes, that's unfortunate.

It's very much a novel that shows how a civilised society can slide so easily into horror. As I type this, I'm in Freiburg, in Germany, and I can see the pavement cafés, and the delightful lunchtime places up in the hills overlooking the city, and yet this city was one of those that, with the rest of the country, embraced Nazism.

I'm looking forward to reading the follow-ups.