Farthing
Farthing is a 2006 alternative history novel by Jo Walton.
The novel is an English murder mystery, akin to those of Agatha Christie, but set in an alternate 1940s England. In this time, England had made peace with Hitler rather than continued World War II. Germany is involved only in a one-front war with Russia, and has overrun the European Continent; Jewish people are persecuted and murdered. In England, a creeping accommodation with fascism and anti-Semitism has overrun the country.
The story follows a murder mystery in the "Farthing set", the wealthy group of associates who negotiated the peace with Hitler. The murder of the figure centrally responsible for the negotiated peace appears to point toward Jews and revolutionaries, but Scotland Yard's detective feels the story is a little too pat.
The story is told primarily from two perspectives: Scotland Yard Inspector Peter Carmichael, and Lucy Kahn, a daughter of the Farthing set, who has married a Jewish man, to her family's dismay. There are several gay characters, and the strong central female character turns out to have hidden depths.
Recommended
A strong female protagonist confronts antiSemitism, classism, fear, and oppression in an alternate history.
Reviews and commentary
- IROSF 2007 review by David Soyka