A review by unisonlibrarian
Dominion by C.J. Sansom

5.0

I like all of Sansom’s work, particularly the Shardlake series but this is quite a big diversion from that and I was unsure what I might make of it. As it happens I thought it was brilliant; I suppose you can loosely call it a thriller but there’s a lot of literary merit here and plenty of research that went in to evaluating the build up to WWII and no little invention in creating the imaginary world where Britain is a colonial tool of the German Empire. The characters are captured really well, with no simple “goodies and baddies” stuff; they’re all flawed in their own way, some more than others and their humanity comes through strongly, even with the Gestapo officer, Gunther. Real historical figures are involved but they show up only sporadically in conversations or news reports that the characters pick up on, something I appreciated since I didn’t want a fictional book about Churchill vs Hitler or something. There are some interesting parallels for our own society as well, usually centred around how we treat “the other”, be they disabled, racially or religiously different. The narrative is built incredibly well and the suspenseful nature of the story is expertly handled. It’s quite a long book at almost 600 pages but it doesn’t feel it. I don’t usually go in for “thrillers” these days but I honestly really enjoyed this.