Farthing

Yes — 'Farthing' (2006) is the first volume of Jo Walton's Small Change trilogy, followed by 'Ha'Penny' (2007) and 'Half a Crown' (2008). All three are set in the same 1940s–1950s Britain that made peace with Nazi Germany, and the series follows detective Peter Carmichael and the aristocratic Larchmont family across the three books.

'Farthing' was nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, Locus, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards but did not win any of those in its year of eligibility. Walton had previously won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2002, and later won the Hugo and Nebula for 'Among Others' (2011).

Walton blends a country-house murder mystery with political thriller: the murder of Sir James Thirkie at Farthing House is investigated by Inspector Carmichael of Scotland Yard, while the alternate chapters are narrated by Lucy Kahn, the daughter of the house who has married a Jewish man. The whodunit gradually reveals the political conspiracy behind the murder.

Walton's setting draws on the real pre-war appeasement politics associated with the 'Cliveden Set' and figures like Lord Halifax, who in 1941 actually pursued peace-feelers with Nazi Germany via Sweden. The novel imagines what would have happened had that faction succeeded rather than been marginalized by Churchill's premiership.