The story is divided into two parallel arcs, one occurring in modern-day London and the other in 1930s England. The initial connection between the two narratives occurs in 2010 when a Nazi memorabilia collector discovers a hand-written note from Adolf Hitler. The letter is addressed to Doctor Erskine, a young aristocrat and eugenics researcher. Evidently, he had sent a gift to Hitler and it had been very well received. The finder of the note, “Fishy”, so called because of a rare medical condition that causes the sufferer’s sweat to smell of rotten fish, appeals to the users of a Nazi memorabilia message board to help in solving the mystery.
Reception
The novel has received broadly positive reviews. Scarlett Thomas of The Guardian wrote that it was a "gripping and clever"[2] story, and while the parts of the novel set in the modern day "occasionally strays too far into postmodern whimsy",[2] the parts of the novel set in the 1930s are "wonderfully evoked, and [...] taut, thematically rich and extremely well written".[2] She added that Beauman had successfully "take[n] an old and predictable structure and allow[ed] it to produce new and unpredictable connections."[2] Keith Miller of The Telegraph described parts of the book as "very funny"[3] with a "smooth narrative flow"[3] and praised the relationship between Seth and Erskine, but believed that parts of the rest of the book were "narratively overdetermined".[3] Rob Sharp of The Independent concluded that it was "a fine debut: clever, inventive, intelligently structured, genre-spanning, [...] and above all, an enjoyable, high-octane read through a fascinating period in history."[4]
