Farthing by Jo Walton

[lightreads]

Farthing by Jo Walton


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
1949, alternate England where Churchill was forced out and Hitler holds the continent. This starts out as a classic English country home mystery, with alternate sections from the daughter of the house (married to a Jewish man! Scandale!) and a Scotland Yard detective. Then in the last third the alternate history politics ratchets tighter and tighter, until I had my hands crunched up in my sweater as I read.

A good book, but you have to give it time. I love this sort of genre-bending thing, though it would have worked better here if the cozy country house mystery was, um, yeah, that's the only word – if the mystery was better. Because it really slumped in some sections, and the slackness wasn't made up for by the charm and quirkiness you expect from this sort of thing. It was a comfortable three stars for that reason, until the last quarter, when all the quietly grim little hints burst through the surface and bam, I was reading a plausible, awful alternate history about lies and social fictions and political power. And it scared me.

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