Ha'penny
Published on 6. February 2014
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-4721-1298-9 (ISBN)
Description
In Ha'penny, England has completed its slide into fascist dictatorship. The last hopes of democracy seem extinguished. Then a bomb explodes in a London suburb.
The brilliant but compromised Inspector Carmichael of Scotland Yard is assigned the case. What he finds leads him to a conspiracy of peers and communists - of staunch King-and-Country patriots and hardened IRA gunmen - to murder the Prime Minister and his ally, Adolf Hitler.
Against a background of domestic espionage and suppression, a band of idealists blackmails an actress who holds the key to the Fuhrer's death. From the ha'penny seats in the theatre to the ha'pennys that cover dead men's eyes, the conspiracy and the investigation swirl inexorably to a stunning conclusion.
The brilliant but compromised Inspector Carmichael of Scotland Yard is assigned the case. What he finds leads him to a conspiracy of peers and communists - of staunch King-and-Country patriots and hardened IRA gunmen - to murder the Prime Minister and his ally, Adolf Hitler.
Against a background of domestic espionage and suppression, a band of idealists blackmails an actress who holds the key to the Fuhrer's death. From the ha'penny seats in the theatre to the ha'pennys that cover dead men's eyes, the conspiracy and the investigation swirl inexorably to a stunning conclusion.
Reviews / Votes
Stellar... Horrifying and all-too-possible. * RT Book Reviews * Walton's use of a common genre template-this time the race-against-time thriller-allows her to develop the eerily contemporary underpinnings of her alternate history.... Gives us much to think about regarding her world and our own. -- Sarah Weinman * The Los Angeles Times * [Farthing and Ha'penny] are compulsively readable for their characters and plots. But it's [Walton's] observations about power that make them hard to put down. * Baltimore City Paper * A literary Guernica-a top-notch thriller set in a terrified Britain that is all too willing to trade freedom for security, and which gets neither. -- Cory Doctorow Haunting...Like meticulously nested Matroyshka dolls, both Farthing and Ha'Penny reveal complex arguments layered in their elegantly structured narratives. * Los Angeles Times * Masterful work.... This is political suspense at its best and brightest * Bookslut.com *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Dimensions
Height: 134 mm
Width: 200 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
231 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4721-1298-9 (9781472112989)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Person
Jo Walton comes from Wales but lives in Montreal, where the food and books are much better. She writes science fiction and fantasy, reads a lot, talks about books, and eats great food. She plans to live to be ninety-nine and write a book every year.