Farthing. By Jo Walton

Farthing

Jo Walton

TOR: Tom Doherty Associates. First published 2006.

Set in the background of a country sliding rapidly into fascism, the book is a murder mystery novel, and at the same time perceptive commentary on the present-day political situation around the world. It's  only grimmer now than it was a decade ago, when the book was published, and Walton's perceptions are now so much more relevant, in 'Modi-fied' India as much as in post-Brexit UK and in Trumpist USA. 'Farthing' is a country house in England, which, in this alternate history, is the seat and the name of the political faction which deposed Churchill and made peace with Germany just after Hitler had occupied France and the rest of Europe. The family party for that weekend at Farthing includes the man who conducted the negotiations with the Third Reich and signed the peace treaty. He is found dead in his bed, murdered, with dramatic marks indicating that it may have been a Jewish conspiracy to repay the man who betrayed them. Inspector Carmichael of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate. In the manner of the classic detective novel, he calls in all the various inhabitants of the manor, one by one, and interviews them. Among them are the owner of the manor, his wife and daughters, and their husbands and lovers. One the husbands is the murdered man. And another is a Jew, who has married the youngest daughter. He is the first and obvious suspect. As the investigation proceeds, there are a couple of attempted murders, and suspicion is cast on each of the inhabitants, in turn. The final solution, when it comes, is satisfying, but the denouement is overtaken by political events, and the book ends on an uncertain and melancholy note.

The story is narrated by two voices. There is the attractive voice of Lucy Kahn, nee Lady Eversley, youngest daughter of Lord Eversley, who owns Farthing. Against family tradition and its politics, indeed against the wishes of all its members, she falls in love with, and marries, the Jew David Kahn. She and her husband are now only barely and grudgingly accepted by the family, and never admitted into the inner circles of confidence. Lucy fears that her innocent husband would be framed for the murder, something which would be all too easy, given the intense discrimination which that race faces in a Britain that has compromised with Hitler. The alternate chapters of the book, written by Lucy, are attractively breathless and deliberately bordering on the silly sometimes. The steel that lies beneath this fluffy exterior however is made apparent in her defense of her husband, especially in the final moments of the book. Altogether, Lucy is a charming character. The other chapters are in third person, mostly describing events from the point of view of Inspector Carmichael. These are straightforward, and most of the police procedures - the interviews, the collecting of clues, the follow-up investigation, the airing of theories - all these take place in these chapters.

The English aristocracy is described to be utterly corrupt and power mad. And the murder is mixed up with politics at the highest level. The men and women are shown to hop in and out of each other's beds almost at will. Lucy and David are exceptions, with their love genuine and strong. Lucy has her own code names for these couplings - 'bognor' for adultery; 'athenian' for a gay relationship; 'roman' for a straight relationship; and 'macedonian' for bisexual. There are other such amusing observations Lucy makes from time to time.

This is a wonderful book, much more than a murder mystery, and yet capable of satisfying on that level too. Walton ostensibly writes in the tradition of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, P.D.James and others of that ilk. But while all those writers, no matter how deep (PDJ) or shallow (AC) psychologically, were adoring in their descriptions of the British upper classes, Walton is like Le Carre, contemptuous of the aristocracy, and firmly left-of-centre.