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“What do you do,� he said, ‘if you devote your life to discovering criminals, and it gradually occurs to you that the real criminals are the people you work for?

Fartherland offers a dismaying vision of what could have been. If the Nazis had won world war two, if their power had continued to spread, they would have owned half the world perhaps even all of it if they conquered at the speed they demonstrated in the 1930s. Their momentum was near unbelievable. The world would be in a terrible state today; it would be universally unrecognisable and utterly oppressed.

Murder, butchery and politics

Hitler is still Fuhrer. The book opens with his 75th birthday celebration; the entirety of Germany is out in celebration of their leader: it’s a national holiday, one all must celebrate. A body is found floating in the dark murky waters of a lake near Berlin. It’s nothing new, nothing remarkable. The Gestapo murder frequently, silencing any who show a lack of patriotism. Brutality is everywhere. The detective investigating the scene (March) is about to have his world transformed by the secrets he finds, which threaten to expose his own lacklustre approach to policing a country he has grown to hate.

March is not a member of the Nazi party; he dares not to speak against them (at least openly) but nor does he care to speak for them. Such a thing is as bad as open revolution, in their eyes, so March has always been monitored heavily by the Gestapo: they don’t trust him or even allow him to advance in his line of profession despite his capabilities. The murder investigation thrusts him into a situation where he is forced to consider his actions most carefully; his line of inquiry casts into suspicion some rather high ranking officials. The cold gaze of the Nazi’s intensifies.

It's an impossible situation. What would you do?

Would you risk your life for justice? The criminals March is chasing down are way beyond his reach; however, he has a duty to perform, a service to the real law and to society. But such things have been twisted beyond all recognition; the law now protects the Nazis, essentially, allowing them to get away with murder. He has a very tricky decision to make, one that will either cost him his life or his morals. And the ending we do get is the one I wanted to see; it was strong and everything it ought to have been to show exactly how far the world has fallen.

Harris shows us a grim world that might have been and it’s quite scary to think how easily it could have been. If Hitler did not decide to attack Russia, forcing his armies to fight on two fronts, and if he did not antagonise the USA, he might have had more time to lick his wounds after Europe’s conquest and regather his strength before tackling bigger foes. Harris provides a grim, cold, mechanical vision of society that would have followed in such an aftermath of Hitler's absolute victory.

Once this has been read it, certainly, cannot be un-read. I finished this back in 2013, and I still remember the entrapped noir feel the streets oozed with.