Jo Warren, Farthing Review

Overall Rating

Farthing
Jo Warren
Tor, Aug 2006, $25.95
ISBN: 9765314215

In 1941, Sir James Thirkie arranged a peace treaty with Hitler, which left the Nazis the continent. Eight years later, the right-wing Farthing Group, whose leader made peace in our times with the Germans, seems ready to take control of the Conservative Party and therefore Great Britain itself.

The Farthing leaders meet to discuss and deal with the future of England as they feel fit. However, someone murders their leader Sir James Thirkie leaving a yellow star as worn by Jews in Europe at the insistence of Hitler pinned to his chest with a dagger. This not only throws the Farthing followers in disarray, it places them under the cloud as murder suspects though they insist the Bolsheviks killed their champion. Scotland Yard Inspector Carmichael realizes that the victim died of carbon monoxide poisoning before he was stabbed by his own knife. He also believes the Jewish star is a red herring to throw blame on the despised Jews perhaps Jewish banker husband, David Kahn, whose spouse Lucy is shot. With pressure from his superiors and the leaders of the government to blame the Jews, Carmichael finds himself embroiled in a political conspiracy that could destroy this little rock of a nation.

Farthing is a terrific alternate history police procedural centered in a world in which the British hierarchy "exiled" Churchill and avoid war by appeasing the Nazis. Though the conspiracy is over the top, the investigation is cleverly handled in a Christie manner that is fun to follow as Carmichael begins to understand the depth of what he is unraveling one layer at a time while his supervisors demand he accuse a Jew preferably the son-in-law of the host. Fans will appreciate this interesting look at a de-Churchill late 1940s England.

Harriet Klausner