Dominion

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Sarah Fitzgerald obviously cared deeply for her husband and it's a shame the love wasn't reciprocated. Perhaps this is an inevitable consequence of having to fill in the counter-factual historical gaps over such a huge period as 12 years. The personages are ordinary people trying their best to lead a ‘normal life’ under these strained circumstances. J. Sansom, though I’m told that he is well-respected for his Shardlake series, historical novels set in Tudor England. Mr Sansom does an excellent job of painting the dreary atmosphere of London both with the descriptions of the economic hardships and daily life - He even weaves real life events like the killing fog that happened in the winter of 1952 into the plot.

I like that we get to know the characters and the slow creep of danger as they realise that the world they are living in is becoming more and more dangerous. But, as in all the best war-related alternative fiction, the finger of suspicion also jabs uncomfortably at the reader. On the whole – the picture of 1952 Britain under the Nazi thumb is very well done, the spy/adventure story line not so effective. On a line roughly extending from Lake Ladoga in the north-west to the Caspian Sea in the south-east, the struggle is in stalemate, a contest punctuated by blows and counter blows which settle nothing. The second best candidate, for me, would have been Rommel, but the author just completely left him out.

Beaverbrook, in real history, was a close friend of Churchill and an effective minister in his wartime cabinet. The ménage a trois between David, his wife Sarah and fellow Resistance fighter Natalia was actually quite sad. Also after all the attention during the novel to Frank not wanting to tell anyone - the scene where he tells David the secret are completely implausible. Sansom himself was "Very Highly Commended" in the 2007 CWA Dagger in the Library award, for the Shardlake series. And in a Birmingham mental hospital an incarcerated scientist, Frank Muncaster, may hold a secret that could change the balance of the world struggle for ever.

I admire his talent for writing fight sequences and action scenes because I, myself, find it difficult and I think it's hard for someone to make it realistic and believable. Halifax, the Foreign Minister and a noted appeaser, is favoured by Chamberlain, the King and most of the Tory Party. Because it was, in his eyes, for the good of his country, the reasoning behind his suicide attempt and his later decisions, is very different than for people with depression. So the narrative viewpoint is split between the evil baddie Nazi Gestapo commander who is sent to the UK to capture a British scientist with a military secret, a decent British chap who is spying for the Resistance, decent chap's insipid wife, and the scientist with undiagnosed Aspergers and a long-winded boarding school backstory.

A resistance movement has sprung up, and the main character in the novel, David Fitzgerald, a low level civil servant in the Dominions office, is passing them documents. It is 1952 and in the UK the people are ruled by a puppet government that submitted to the Nazi government in 1940 after the disaster of Dunkirk. I don’t care what path the author takes to tell the story as long as I can follow what’s going on. Enoch Powell is Secretary of State for India, where Britain is still fighting a rearguard action to retain the Jewel in the tawdry Crown. Ps the storyline in ‘Dominion’ also makes me ensure the Grandchildren stair gates are safely secured at all times.