A solid but unremarkable sequel to Farthing, Ha'penny suffers somewhat from middle-book-in-a-trilogy syndrome. Between that, the constraints of the historical background Walton has established, and a loss of subtlety in the political elements, I found the plot rather predictable and that robbed the ending somewhat of its tension. I also wish that Walton would get someone Irish to check over her work, because there are subtle things she gets wrong about her Irish characters which were jarring for me. (Though that throwaway line about de Valera did make me snicker.)

My favourite part of the book was the... well, play-within-a-play, I suppose, the gender-swapped version of Hamlet in which one of the main characters is performing. I'd love to see that live! Overall, I enjoyed Ha'penny well enough to search out the last book in the trilogy, but not without a certain wariness. ( )

Was disappointed far into the book that it wasn't as enjoyable as Farthing. After I go over that feeling, it was OK, but the story feels weak, and the characters didn't grip me at all. ( )

(Amy) Congratulations, Tor: Herewith I present a book I purchased after reading its prececessor in the free Tor e-book promotion (and I bought Farthing, too). I cannot swear I would not have purchased them eventually anyway - many people I know rave about her books - but I know I had not previously ever really thought about them one way or another, so I think it's pretty fair to credit the purchase to the free e-book.

In any case, Ha'penny picks up one of the threads from the end of Farthing, that of Inspector Carmichael, as he investigates another high-profile crime with possible ramifications to the government. As in the previous book, the other plot thread is a first-person narrative from a person intimately involved in the situation being investigated. These threads are interwoven in an alternating-chapters format, and the bits of plot revealed in each s

The background of the story is a horrifying image of a way the world could have gone in the 40s, had the war - and a few other things - turned out a bit differently. Walton does such a wonderful job of painting England's descent into fascism as well as the unthinking anti-Semitism of, apparently, the entire world, that I felt just a little bit soiled after reading it, and perhaps as if I ought to feel bad for enjoying the book so much despite the very unpleasant world it is set in. Regardless, I look very much forward to Half a Crown, and I also rather hope at some point we might get a closer look at what is going on in this world's very-much-closed-off America.

I also hope that the tendencies of some groups of people in the modern era to hand off freedoms in the name of "security" never slide far enough down the slope to deposit us in a world that looks even a little bit like this one.
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