What if England had signed a peace agreement with Germany after Dunkirk? In 1952, during a Great Smog, the resistance to the authoritarian dictatorship, led by Churchill, is growing. This spy thriller (and love story) has nothing to do with the previous Shardlake series. Despite its well worked out thesis, it seems to bog down for lack of activity in spots, overladen with conversation. Nevertheless a gripping and realistic read.
What if those English politicians who thought it would be more pragmatic to appease Hitler had prevailed? This is the "then what would have happened" in novel form. It is set in an alternative 1952.
Better than most alternate histories I've read, the characters are more real, and there's a lot of history and thought-out alternate history. The counterfactual, however, is a bit unbelievable; it requires Churchill to remain quiet when he actually spoke up, which for him would be rather bizarre.
