Hitler has won. It is 1964 and the Greater German Reich stretches from the Netherlands to the Ural Mountains. Xavier March, a cop and a good man despite his SS uniform, investigates the murder of an old man who was once a Nazi bureaucrat. What March uncovers is a conspiracy that reaches to the highest echelons of the German Reich, a truth that could topple governments, change history and get him killed.
Robert Harris isn't the first author to imagine a world in which the Nazis won, and he won't be the last, but Fatherland is probably one of the best. Harris uses his lovely, sparse writing style to perfectly evoke the mood and the people of a fascist Germany. There's no long-winded and tedious back story to wade through, instead Harris hooks you in with comments and flashbacks which hint at but never fully reveal his divergent history. The same sparse description is used to bring his characters to life. Xavier March is an interesting and well written protagonist and more than just a world-weary detective; he's an honest man working for a criminal regime, a war veteran disillusioned by Nazi ideology and an independent thinker in a nation of followers.
The plot itself is gripping and the tension and paranoia ramps up as the full extent of the conspiracy is gradually unveiled. You can sense disaster coming, it's inevitable, and yet you can't stop reading. The ending is abrupt with not even an epilogue to tie up the many loose ends. I guess this untidy conclusion was intentional, perhaps reflecting that reality is untidy, perhaps leaving the reader wondering long after the book has been finished.
In summary, Fatherland is a well written and absorbing crime noir where the crime is solved but a grim evocation of life in a fascist state lingers long in the memory. Well worth the read.
Read On: I enjoyed Robert Harris' Enigma so I may go on to read another of his books, such as The Ghost, or An Officer and a Spy. The what-ifs of alternative histories intrigue me, so I may crack open Dominion by C.J. Sansom, a spy thriller based in Nazi Britain.
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