gervase_fen | Disordered Daggers : Liberation Square by Gareth Rubin (2019) (Reply)

Gareth Rubin's alt-historical takes place in a 1952 where the Iron Curtain advanced all the way across Europe as far as the Thames. D-Day failed, the Germans crossed the Channel, and then the Soviet armies (and one particular ship of their Navy) triumphed in a counterstrike that leaves London and England partitioned. We see these events through the eyes of narrator Jane Cawson, a doctor's wife whose husband is trying to ingratiate himself with senior Party officials. Nick Cawson's first wife, Lorelei, casts a shadow over the relationship - an impossibly glamorous actress, star of the smash propaganda film "Victory 1945". Jane has never been convinced that Nick is not still involved with her - and her suspicions lead her to visit Lorelei's house and stumble into a crime scene.

I've read counter historical thrillers before, specifically Jo Walton's Farthing trilogy, C J Sansom's Dominion and Philip Kerr's Hitler's Peace - all of which take a sidestep to the right rather than the left. This book has the flavour of Walton and Sansom, with psych wards, informants, turncoat politicians and secret police operating in a similar fashion. There's also a strand reminiscent of Luke McCallin's The Man from Berlin, which also concerned the death of actress being investigated in a totalitarian state.

Gareth Rubin has set himself quite a challenge - build a convincing counterfactual world and also devise a compelling murder mystery. The set pieces are very strong - a visit to a Gulag style psychiatric ward, an undercover mission to a country house weekend dedicated to gambling and decadence, a Teddy Boy riot on smog filled Soho streets. Occasionally the bread crumbs laid out for the heroine and the reader to follow seem to fall arbitrarily into our laps, and as Lorelei’s secrets and connections are revealed she becomes more plot cipher than character. Inevitably there is a bit too much tell and not enough show (and could Anthony Blunt really have been a puppet figurehead of state in the 50s?)The ending is left open for a sequel or two in the same timeline, which I hope Gareth Rubin will explore further.

(This is Rubin's first novel, but not his first book - his authorship of Crap Days Out (2011) disqualifies him from the New Blood category, but presumably provided lots of inspiration for bleak visions of urban England.)