This novel was one of the first few that Tor sent out in their current campaign of sending out free e-books. I’m hoping it’s a prelude to them having all these books available on their website, also for free, like yesterday’s Baen. So while I can’t give you a direct link to this book it’s available in print, and at least vaguely available free on the internet. Jo Walton has written quite a few books, in various aspects of the SF genre (fantasy, alternate history,etc.). I’d read about this book, and being a fan of alternate histories, I made a note to buy it if I ever found a copy. When I saw that Tor was going to give me a copy for free, there was much rejoicing.

In this novel, before America could get bombed at Pearl Harbor and decide to enter World War II, England made a strange sort of truce with Germany. Hitler could have the whole of the Continent, as long as they stayed on that side of the Channel. Unfortunately, situations in England weren’t all that great for the Jews who were there. Lucy Kahn (nee Eversley), one of the main characters in this book, is married to a Jewish man named David. She and David and a number of seemingly random people were invited to her parents’ house, Farthing, for a house party, and one of the more important members of the House of Lords, Lord James Thirkie, turns up dead. Obviously David comes under suspicion; he’s Jewish, of course. And he certainly didn’t do it, but who did?

Alternating chapters are from Lucy’s first-person point of view; the other chapters are from Inspector Carmichael’s point of view. The timelines don’t quite match up, so we know more about the investigation than Lucy. Well, that and the police don’t generally tell all their information to the wives of suspects. Inspector Carmichael is very thorough, but a smidge dull; it seems that his strongest character trait is that he’s gay. He has quite a bit of integrity, though; he spends the majority of the book unconvinced that Kahn is guilty, and he actually investigates every possible angle.

Lucy is the daughter of a viscount; she was raised as an upper-class British woman in the first half of the twentieth century, and is definitely privileged. She’s lost some of the scales over her eyes due to being married to a Jew; however, she still says things like that she isn’t very clever at all, when it seems to me that she’s quite clever. Her husband, David, is all that is good and honorable and British — yes, and Jewish. He’s, in many ways, more British than the British. Lucy’s mother is quite horrible, and her father quite boring.

The secondary characters — including Lucy’s horrible parents, James Thirkie’s mother, and Carmichael’s assistant, Royston — are all very British and very familiar. Many of them because they are common types of characters found in British mystery novels like Sayers and Christie; some are familiar because they are general British stereotypes. Nearly all readers will find something they will recognize in the supporting cast. In many ways, the cast forms a large part of the worldbuilding. Walton apparently did a lot of research for this novel, and it shows — in a good way. Small touches like Nazi sympathizer Charles Lindbergh being elected the President of the United States of America, and having a novel by George Orwell called 1974 make the world complete, believable, and quite impressive. I found Walton’s writing style and language quite lovely and thorough, as well; I really did believe that Lucy was a twenty-something upper-class British woman of the forties or so — almost a twit but not quite.

I was a little disappointed in the cliffhanger ending. Yes, I knew there was a sequel, and yes, the mystery was solved, after a fashion, but now I have to find a copy of the sequel, Ha’penny. Other than that, I very much enjoyed this book. Be warned, though — this is an alternate history, full of politics, not a historical fantasy novel. There is no magic, but there is an awful lot of Britishisms and intrigue. 4.5/5 stars.