Leading the hunt is Gestapo Sturmbannfuhrer Gunther Hoth. The deadly chase for Frank pits the might of Germany against the full support of the Resistance movement. But the priority must be in keeping Frank away from the Germans (and British police) who are desperate for his secret. David must rescue Frank - before the Gestapo get their torturous hands on either of them - and smuggle him out of the country and into US custody. Frank, the victim of a traumatic life, is in a Birmingham mental hospital, alone with knowledge that could change the course of history a secret from his brother scientist concerning the development of the atomic bomb. His main mission involves his old friend Frank Muncaster. The protagonist is David Fitzgerald, a Civil Servant in the Dominions Office, secretly helping the Resistance, whilst hiding the fact that his mother was Jewish. The Resistance, increasingly strengthening as' British' interest weakens, are a mixed group of both fugitives and those hidden in plain sight, all intent on restoring freedom and democracy. He’s in hiding - wanted dead or alive - but makes a cameo in the book.

Hitler, suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, is at death’s door and the more Fascist Britain becomes the more the resistance grows, but Beaverbrook, Mosley and Enoch Powell are unwilling to stand up for the British people.Ī well organised Resistance movement – similar to that occurred in France – is led by Winston Churchill. The streets are marshalled by a violent auxiliary police and Jews face ever greater constraints: being forced to wear Star of David lapels and rounded up and taken to the Isle of Wight on route to German camps. The British are under authoritarian rule, the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley is home secretary, and the media’s under state control. The German-Soviet War is still on-going and taking its toll on Germany. The story is set in 1952 amid London’s London’s Great Smog. When Lloyd George - who had become PM after Halifax had resigned - died in 1945, the newspaper tycoon Lord Beaverbrook became Prime Minister. After Dunkirk, Britain accepted the terms offered by Germany, escaping Occupation but shackled to the Nazi regime.

Instead, it’s Lord Halifax that influenced the war cabinet and took the hot seat. Here’s a look at Fatherland and, first, Dominion.Ĭ J Sansom’s version has Churchill failing to become Prime Minister in May 1940. If ever there was world ripe for the alternative-history genre then it is a world in which the Nazi’s won the war. The what if… in these sliding doors moments has been realised in several works of fiction, not least the 1992 crime novel Fatherland by Robert Harris and CJ Sansom’s 2012 thriller Dominion. There are several points during the Second World War when the balance of power could have turned decisively the way of Hitler.

Dominion sansom review