A Man Lies Dreaming

March 14, 2016
Even devoted fans of revisionist fiction might blanche at the premise of Tidhar's latest, which supposes that the National Socialists lost their bid for Germany in 1933, after which the country fell into the hands of Jewish Communists in an event known as the Fall. Now it's 1939 and an underworld of ex-Nazis has taken root in London, where they are essentially an oppressed minority. One of their number is Wolf, a hard-bitten detective with a mysterious past, who breaks his rule against taking on Jewish clients to locate a beautiful woman's missing sister. Soon Wolf is enmeshed in the search for a murderer, uncovering a conspiracy with links to the identity he left behind in Nuremberg and will go to any length to keep hidden. And then there are the dreams that haunt Wolf: dreams of a man named Shomer, a prisoner in a concentration camp who himself dreams of another world. This sounds provocative and transgressive, but the execution is strictly by the numbers. The noir elements are deadeningly predictable and Wolf's investigation quickly turns into a game of spot-the-historical-figure. This is a toothless exercise of What If topped with a trite twist.

Starred review from January 1, 2016
A down-on-his-luck Hitler, now working as a private detective in London, searches for a missing Jewish girl in this wild, noir-infused alternative history from genre-bender Tidhar (Osama, 2011, etc.) After the communists take over Germany in the early 1930s, the one-time leader of the National Socialists, now calling himself Wolf, escapes to London, where he tweaks his appearance ever so slightly ("He could no longer abide the moustache") and sets up shop as a gumshoe. His need for cash supersedes his virulent anti-Semitism, and soon he's in the employ of Isabella Rubinstein ("a tall drink of pale milk"), on the hunt for her sister, who was smuggled out of Germany by ex-Nazis but seems to have vanished. If the proceedings sound pulpish, it's because they're the imaginings of Shomer, once a "purveyor of Yiddish shund"--lowbrow detective stories and the like--now a prisoner at Auschwitz. Tidhar deftly shifts between these two worlds, dedicating the majority of the novel to Wolf's "fictional" London of 1939 but also illuminating Shomer's horrible reality, all the while crafting a mystery that is absorbing in its own right. As Wolf hunts for the girl, he begins to investigate his former associates, and Tidhar has good fun populating the story with real-life characters whose lives have taken unexpected turns: Hermann Goring is now "a simple pimp," Leni Riefenstahl works for Warner Bros. The presence of a Hitler-obsessed serial killer and Wolf's association with Oswald Mosley, the British Fascist now running for prime minister, keep things moving. The story isn't for the weak of heart: Tidhar/Shomer revels in describing Wolf's sexual proclivities, and at least one torture scene won't be easy for readers to forget. But though at times the narrative feels almost farcical, Shomer's presence imbues it with unexpected weight, resulting in an ending that is more gut punch than punch line. A wholly original Holocaust story: as outlandish as it is poignant.

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Starred review from March 1, 2016

How do you make sense of the Holocaust, the deliberate murder of so many people for the sole fact of belonging to a different tribe? World Fantasy Award winner Tidhar's (Osama) answer is to create a world of his own and place Adolf Hitler smack dab in the middle of it. The Communists win in Germany in 1933 and Hitler flees. In 1939, now named Wolf, he's a none-too-successful private eye operating out of a rundown office in a neighborhood populated by losers and whores in London. Oswald Mosley's fascist Blackshirts roam the streets terrorizing people: Mosley is about to be elected prime minister. Then a beautiful woman approaches the failed fuhrer and asks him to locate her missing sister. Mosley wants Wolf to find out who's behind assassination attempts against him. Meanwhile, in Wolf's neighborhood, someone is killing prostitutes. Elsewhere, in Auschwitz, Shomer dreams, talks to the dead, anything to numb his thinking of his own loss. The two narratives merge in a Chandler-esque mystery, which is also a lurid S&M thriller and a jarring tale of a grim, gray alternative world. VERDICT Seldom will readers come across fantasy as well conceived and well written as this exceptional novel, a 2015 winner of the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize.--David Keymer, Modesto, CA

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2016
Multiple-award-winning author Tidhar (The Violent Century, 2013) crafts another success with this pulpy take on alternate history. Wolf has fled from Germany to London in 1939 after Communists defeated Nazis at the polls, trading his role as an influential political player for that of a struggling private detective. Wealthy Jewish socialite Isabella Rubenstein approaches Wolf to find her missing sister, certain that Wolf's former association with the smuggler hired to bring her sister from Germany makes him most equipped to solve her disappearance. Poverty dictates that Wolf squash his race hatred and accept the work. It's not his only job; tension over the influx of German immigrants has catapulted Oswald Mosley and his Fascist Blackshirts to the height of political power, and Mosley hires his former political ally, Wolf, to identify the assassins attempting to halt his rise. A killer calling himself the Watcher further complicates matters by implicating Wolf in a string of grisly prostitute murders. Meanwhile, Shomer, a pulp-fiction writer held in a concentration camp, creates a noir world populated by shadowy criminals, femmes fatales, and backstabbing allies. How are Wolf and Shomer connected? Readers will figure that out quickly, but no matter. Everything in this genre-bender works; intriguing historical characters are worked into expertly managed plots, and the visceral noir atmosphere is juxtaposed nicely against the drawing-room world of London's political scene.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)