Ha'penny (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 2007; vuoden 2008 painos)

I read Farthing last month, and straight away I added the next book to Mount TBR. Well, the second I finished this I almost grabbed the third in the series to start reading it. In fact, had it not been for the fact that I didn’t have it with me, and had time left on my lunch for reading, I would probably have dived right into the third book. Because I loved this one. I mean, I really liked Farthing, it was great, but this one is even better in some respects.

It is certainly darker.

And yet despite the darkness and the horror it is an incredibly easy book to read and to enjoy. Also, when I say dark and horror, I don’t mean that there this is anything like a torture-porn story or a ghost story. Instead it is a social and political horror story, the erosion of democracy and the formation of a fascist society. And how easy it seems to happen.

I hadn’t read the blurb on the back, of this, or any of the other books in the series, so I thought this might be a continuation of Lucy and David’s story. So I was a bit thrown to have a different first person narrator. But only initially. After a paragraph or too I could see why Walton chose to centre the story on a different woman. She’s from a similar class and status to Lucy, but she has a very different outlook to her.

Inspector Carmichael is the returning central character here, and after how Farthing ended for him, he has serious soul searching to do. His story is so important. A good man, in terrible times, with a secret that those in power are all too willing to use to keep him in line. His story is heart-breaking.

I found that I kept wanting to keep reading this book. It’s certainly a tense, atmospheric page-turner of a book. Makes for compulsive reading. ( )

It succeeds as a police procedural, as alternate history and as a work of high order literature. As rising suspense propels the plot forward our protagonist rises to the challenges placed in front of him. You care not only for the characters but also for the implications in our all to real present. And if the human players are not enough, enjoy London as just a real character as Carmichael. Head for the library, or the bookstore, physical or virtual. ( )

For me, an OK but disappointing 2nd book in the Small Change trilogy. As with Farthing, there are two alternating story lines. There's the continuing story of Peter Carmichael, told in the third person, and a new story, about the actress Viola Lark(in), told in the first person. I have four problems with the book. The first is that the first-person story line is nowhere near as engaging as the first book's. I think Walton had a clear and not very flattering picture of Viola in mind, but it's very difficult to convey a character's limitations in the first person without lapsing into parody. As a result, Viola at once early crucial juncture acts in a way I found inexplicable. The second problem for me was that the story is too pre-determined by the conventions of the genre. The third problem is a concluding bit of character retrospection that is way too pat and artificial. The fourth problem is a minor irritation; there must have been 5 different uses of "ha'penny" to motivate the title. One was sufficient.

That said, the Carmichael half of the book is strong. Recommended for anyone who liked Farthing. ( )

It's good! But not as good as Farthing, which has a more cohesive viewpoint. This was just as suspenseful, but it ended too abruptly. I needed a denouement. ( )

Second in the trilogy set in the late 1940s in an England that accepted a 'peace' with Hitler in 1941 and has become very much like Germany.

The ha'penny of the title is in a quote from Shakespeare's play Hamlet, around which the plot revolves. Really quite clever - and frightening. ( )