I always like to have a seasonal book on the go at this time of year but I did not expect this to be one. It is set in London December 1952 when the ‘Killer Smog’ as it became known enveloped the city for four days. It is estimated that around 12,000 people died and thousands more were made ill. The smog is a sustained presence throughout the novel affecting the lives of all the main characters but it can be seen as symbolic of a far greater evil which has descended on British society and seeping into all the major institutions.
Britain is presented as a satellite state of Nazi Germany having surrendered in 1940 after the disasterous Norwegian campaign. There has been no invasion but successive governments are firmly under the thumb of Germany and gradually Britain is being moulded according to Nazi values. There is a Resistance, the figurehead of which is Winston Churchill, constantly on the move to avoid arrest which would certainly lead to his execution.
There have been a number of novels of the ‘What If . . ‘ variety which have tried to work out what might have happened had Germany prevailed in the Second World War. The disturbing thing about this novel is that it suggests that the Britain of the 1940s may well have been fertile ground for the growth of Nazism. There was a nationalism, an imperialism and to some extent an anti-semitism which Nazism could connect with, and all of this is apart from the spirit of appeasement which existed from different motives.
The main characters in the novel are all members of the Resistance, drawn in for different reasons and all with their own inner conflicts to resolve. You really get to know them and while they are not consistently likable you end up caring about them. The ingenious plot carries them along through many twists and turns to the climax on a Brighton beach.
It is stunning thriller writing combined with impressive historical research and deserves to be read not just for its entertainment value but for the warnings that are there for all who have eyes to see. In a lengthy and controversial ‘Historical Note’ Sansom points out that the nationalism which gave Nazism its opportunity is being seen all over Europe. He writes:
‘ . . . all across Europe, in France, Hungary, Greece, Finland, even Holland, and most worryingly perhaps in Russia, fiercely nationalistic, anti-immigrant, and sometimes openly Fascist nationalist parties are significant forces in politics again. And the terrible story of Yugoslavia in the 1990s reminds us just how murderous European nationalisms can still become.’
There are also some harsh words about the SNP which have provoked responses from Scottish writer James Robertson and various people supportive of the SNP.
I would hope that the controversy does not completely obscure what is a stunning achievement by C.J. Sansom.
