(originally posted on September 28, 2008)
One of my all-time favorite series of books wraps up in worthy fashion, bringing to a close Walton's alternate history of what might have transpired had Britain and Nazi Germany agreed to "peace in our time." Once again, I marvel at how Walton is a student of history without teaching it to the reader in didactic fashion, how she contrasts the innocence of her chosen 18 year old budding debutante heroine with the world-weary nature of her guardian, the Chief of the Watch designed to implement Britain's neo-fascist rulings, and how she comes up with a shocker of a twist to bring about the trilogy's close, wrapping up some major threads but never quite tying them up as neatly as we might hope. It's a scary world that was once avoided - but the line is so thin that we're not so far off from something like this happening again and openly.
