Farthing is a book that I found compulsively readable, but that I dreaded reading. Not because I didn't want to know what happened, but because I knew what happened would be wrenching. It delivered, too -- the novel is powerful, thought-provoking, and deeply sad.
It is set in a country house in England in about 1950. But not our England: in this one a splinter group of the Tories, the Farthing Set, pushed for a separate peace with Hitler in 1941, ending the war. Europe is under Nazi control, and is a hellhole for Jews. The Germans continue to fight with the Soviets. Th US, under President Lindbergh, has remained neutral. And the Farthing Set continue to jockey for power in an increasingly unpleasant, though still green, England.
Lucy Kahn is the daughter of the power behind the scenes of the Farthing Set, Lady Eversley. Lucy and her Jewish husband, David, are at her parents' home for a party prior to a crucial vote, despite Lucy's break with her anti-Semitic parents over her marriage to David. Then a leading Farthing MP is murdered, in a way that seems crudely to suggest Jewish involvement.
Alternating chapters tell of the investigation of the crime by Inspector Carmichael, an intelligent man with a dangerous secret of his own: he is homosexual. (Indeed, so are many of the characters in this book, including several of the Farthing Set.) Carmichael slowly figures out what has really happened, while the powers that be push for David Kahn's arrest, despite the ultimate absurd nature of any claims that he committed the murder. The waters are muddied by a curious attack on Lucy and her father.
As I said, I could see all along that this was leading to a scary resolution, and so it does. Scary, bitter, almost hopeless, and quite moving. And thought-provoking about the dangers of fascism.
It's not a perfect book. Some of the plot details seem a bit too pat, too much of a setup. While the two main characters (Lucy Kahn and Inspector Carmichael) are well-depicted, and very sympathetic, the other characters are hard to grasp. David Kahn comes off as little more than a saint, while we get almost no understanding the true villains, particularly Lucy's evil Mummy, Lady Eversley. All the characters seem to have absurdly perfect "gaydar", as well. But these are but quibbles, and only slightly muffle the impact of a powerful book.