There was nothing intentional about the timing of this read, but Jo Walton’s Farthing (2006) is in fact a perfect fit for this moment of our Worst Timeline. An alternate history about the inexorable encroachment of fascism within a liberal democracy, this one — which might have been hailed as chilling upon its release — is even more relevant today.
Farthing is set in the late forties, eight years after a World War II that unfolded quite differently. In this timeline, conservative politicians in England ousted Winston Churchill and negotiated a separate peace with Hitler. Germany now rules continental Europe, but Great Britain is no longer in the line of fire, thanks to the efforts of a political class known as “the Farthing Set.” This group is centered around a village and a country manor of the same name, where cagey diplomats have exploited antisemitism and xenophobia and converted it into political power. When the primary negotiator of England’s peace with Germany, Sir James Thirkie, is murdered at Farthing, London sends along an inspector to solve the case. The prime suspect seems to be David Kahn, the Jewish husband of Thirkie’s daughter Lucy. Inspector Peter Carmichael isn’t convinced, but his investigation nonetheless sets off a chain of events that threatens to turn into a political firestorm.
Farthing is an effortlessly read cross-genre cautionary tale — one that we clearly didn’t heed — blending classic alternate-history speculation with cozy(ish) mystery. The setting, meanwhile, has a distinct Downton Abbey flavor, and while those trappings are familiar, they nicely inform the slow-building political themes. Compared to the bold authoritarian power grab the United States is currently undergoing, Farthing’s conspiracy feels fairly tame, but it’s still a powerful book which satisfyingly resolves the mystery without pulling its thematic punches.
