Ha'penny

September 3, 2007
This provocative sequel to acclaimed alternate history Farthing
(2006) delves deeper into the intrigue and paranoia of 1940s fascist Great Britain. Denied help from the United States, England negotiated the Farthing Peace with the Nazis to end WWII, surrendering freedom for a narrow kind of safety. Eight years later, Scotland Yard investigators like Inspector Carmichael spend as much time monitoring the activities of gays, Jews and foreigners as they do hunting criminals. Carmichael, outed to his superiors as a homosexual and blackmailed into keeping deadly political secrets, plans to retire after his current case, a bombing at the country house of respected actress Lauria Gilmore. Meanwhile, Viola Lark is preparing for the role of her life as a female Hamlet when she's coerced into a plot to kill the prime minister and Hitler on opening night. World Fantasy Award–winner Walton masterfully illustrates how fear can overwhelm common sense, while leaving hope for a resurgence of popular bravery and an end to dictatorial rule.

October 1, 2007
Britain made peace with Germany shortly after Dunkirk. The Nazis have ruled the continent since, and Fascist sympathizers are influential in Britain. After a bomb explodes in a London suburb, killing an aging actress and an unknown man, honest but politically compromised Inspector Carmichael of Scotland Yard tries to make sense of a complicated conspiracy to kill the prime minister and his ally, Adolf Hitler. In a milieu of nasty domestic spying and vicious discrimination against Jews and homosexuals, several miscellaneous conspirators blackmail the key person needed for their plot, an actress more concerned with her role in Hamlet than her role in politics. Although she cooperates under the pressure, she sees that, whatever the outcome, its likely to make things worse. Waltons second hard-hitting thriller set in the alternate reality of Farthing (2006) is convincing and thought-provoking enough to make one ask, Could that be me? My country?(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)