Dominion

Product Information

And also really unnecessary - in fact I think it would work better if we didn't ever know the secret. Sansom also nails his colours to the mast about the sadness of the descent into Brexit ( I share his views).

At the risk of trying your patience I’m going to begin this review by looking at the justification for the premises contained in the novel, set out in a Historical Note at the very end.In a fit of camaraderie, Frank reveals the secret to David who is trying to get Frank off to America with the help of other resistance workers. It's also fascinating to see how the characters need to find phone boxes to communicate - what a difference mobile technology has made in today's world. That is the back story; the front story contains a spy narrative weaved around nuclear secrets, a Resistance love story and an internecine feud within the ruling Nazi-friendly British Government. David and Sarah have problems in their relationship because of their recent tragedy and the involvement with the resistance makes everything more difficult. I loved the story, was carried along by it and finally finished reading it in the middle of the night.

I've not read many books about resistance organisations, but I'd have thought that one of the cardinal rules was that people knew only as much as they needed to know, and nothing more. Everything is under supreme control, with the likes of the press, radio and tv, streets are patrolled by violent police, and all this and ever greater constraints the British will have to endure. Everyone hears Frank screaming, repeating over and over, 'the World is coming to an end' all the while trashing his apartment, sadly for Frank his descent into hell has just begun; he is packed off to a lunatic asylum. There is a paucity of interesting narrative in the novel, caused by the heavy attention to historical detail and certain ideas therein. Samson has simply advanced beyond his fictitious present to a real future, to Powell’s 1960s warning over the possible effects of mass immigration.George Orwell, who also feared a form of fascism in England, was altogether more subtle than the inept Mister Sansom, at pains to advance his left-wing credentials. In one way, this is unsatisfactory, in another it emphasises how the actions of ordinary people do not impact or contribute to the bigger one. If the anti SNP bias in the narrative is not strange enough, in a note at the end of the book Sansom goes into a personal diatribe against the party and its introduction of the Scottish Independence referendum and he urges us to support the 'UK Better Together' campaign.