By: Robert Harris
Narrated by: Michael Jayston
Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins

This novel takes on alternate history and does so with real credibility; the world Harris constructs feels coherent, unsettling, and convincingly lived in. In many respects, the book feels like a contemporary of 11/22/63 in its seriousness of approach, though it achieves its alternate reality without relying on time travel. Instead, it advances a single counterfactual premise and follows it carefully to its logical conclusions.

The social and political structures of the story draw heavily from real developments of the Soviet era; surveillance, bureaucracy, propaganda, and managed truth all serve as the model. These familiar mechanisms are then adapted to remain cogent within a world shaped by a victorious Third Reich, producing a setting that feels both recognizable and deeply disturbing.