Farthing - Jo Walton

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Title: Farthing
Author: Jo Walton
Genre: Alternative history, crime
Rating: 7/10
# pages: 319
Date read: January, 2009

Summary: Over a summers weekend in 1949 -- but not our 1949 -- the upper-crust "Farthing set," the group that overthrew Churchill and negotiated peace with Hitler eight years before, enjoys a country retreat. Lucy is a minor daughter of two politicians in the group; since her marriage to a London Jew, relations have been strained. So she's surprised when she and husband David are invited for the weekend. Then, overnight, a different member of the set is found murdered, with abundant signs that the killing was ritualistic. As the authorities begin to investigate, it becomes clear to Lucy and David that they were invited in order to pin the murder on David. But whoever devised this conspiracy didn't reckon on the man from Scotland Yard being someone with his own private reasons for sympathizing with outcasts and looking beyond the obvious. As the trap slowly shuts on Lucy and David, they begin to see a way out -- a way fraught with peril in a darkening world. More than an alternate-history story, more than a drawing-room mystery, Farthing is a compelling story of encroaching darkness and the people who ultimately decide to resist it.

Review: I really enjoyed the writing style of this novel, with every other chapter being told by Lucy Kahn in first person and every other chapter told from the view point of Inspector Carmichael in third person. Jo Walton did an excellent job of keeping the two different styles distinct, and letting us see the plot unfold from each viewpoint.

But while I enjoyed the writing style, I'm not too sure about the plot. I've never been big on whodunit, but this had the distinct advantage of giving the reader all the same pieces of information as the inspector had, so I was able to puzzle out the clues at the same time as he was. The ending was greatly disappointing, not from a literary point of view but from a personal point of view. I didn't like that it had to end that way, but I can see how it would be necessary to keep true to the book's universe... where might makes right, and prejudices run abundant.

All in all a very interesting social realistic novel set in an alternative history. I'm glad to have read it... but not sure I'd be going out of my way to get hold of more of Walton's books.

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