In the summer of 1949, eight years after the peace conclusion with Hitler, Britain inexorably drives towards a gloomy future. Hitler is expected to go to a state visit, and in a London suburb, a bomb explodes and tears two people to their death.

Inspector Carmichael would rather leave Scotland Yard and also the country today than tomorrow since he was forced to cover a killer: none other than Prime Minister Mark Normanby. Now he comes on the track of a conspiracy of royalty-loyal patriots, communists and IRA fighters who plan an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister and Hitler.

But the assassins depend on the help of actress Viola Lark, who lives only for the theatre and has reached the peak of her career with the role as Hamlet. Time gets out of the joints, and everyone must make decisions whose consequences are unforeseen.

In the second volume of her crime trilogy, Jo Walton describes how fascism gains a foothold in Britain - if the story had gone differently. Exciting and frighteningly convincing, the portrait of a society in which fear rules, betrayal lurks everywhere and no one can remain innocent anymore.