num_pages: 319
description: One summer weekend in 1949 — but not our 1949 — the well-connected "Farthing set", a group of upper-crust English families, enjoy a country retreat. Lucy is a minor daughter in one of those families; her parents were both leading figures in the group that overthrew Churchill and negotiated peace with Herr Hitler eight years before.Despite her parents' evident disapproval, Lucy is married — happily — to a London Jew. It was therefore quite a surprise to Lucy when she and her husband David found themselves invited to the retreat. It's even more startling when, on the retreat's first night, a major politician of the Farthing set is found gruesomely murdered, with abundant signs that the killing was ritualistic.It quickly becomes clear to Lucy that she and David were brought to the retreat in order to pin the murder on him. Major political machinations are at stake, including an initiative in Parliament, supported by the Farthing set, to limit the right to vote to university graduates.But whoever's behind the murder, and the frame-up, didn't reckon on the principal investigator from Scotland Yard being a man with very private reasons for sympathizing with outcasts… and looking beyond the obvious.As the trap slowly shuts on Lucy and David, they begin to see a way out — a way fraught with peril in a darkening world.
language: English
title: Farthing
titlecomplete: Farthing (Small Change, #1)
characters: David Kahn, Sukey Dorset, Angela Thirkie, Lucy Kahn, Inspector Peter Carmichael, Lord Eversley, Inspector Yately, Daphne Normanby, Mark Normanby, Lady Eversley, Sergeant Royston, Sir James Thirkie
genres: Historical, Fantasy, Mystery, Alternate History, Speculative Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Crime
ratings_count: 5374
places: England
series: Small Change
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Nebula Award
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: Locus Award
category: Best SF Novel, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: John W. Campbell Memorial Award
category: Best Science Fiction Novel, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Sidewise Award
category: Alternate History
publisher: Tor Books