Europe at Dawn

The final (?) novel in Dave Hutchinson's Fractured Europe series is another cracking mix of thriller and espionage set in an alternative future Europe.

The novel opens with a short little chapter about a couple who buy a narrowboat, do it up and occasionally transport people to certain locations. It's another short character study, the kind that Hutchinson favoured to excess in Europe in Winter. The rest of the first half of the book is devoted to two people - the migrant Benno, trapped on a barren island in the Med along with thousands of other illegal immigrants; and Alice, who works for the Scottish Embassy in Tallin, Estonia. Both their lives become intertwined and change dramatically when they get mixed up with the Coureurs de Bois, the semi-mythic covert operations that recruited Rudi in Europe in Autumn.

As the story proceeds it's clear that Hutchinson has taken us back in time to the years before the disappearance of the Line, the sovereign nation that was also a trans-European railway, at the end of Europe in Winter. So we work our way towards that significant event and the revelation of the Community, the pocket universe country that exists topologically in the same space as Europe. By the end of this first half of the story, both Benno and Alice's lives are unrecognisable. It's brilliantly conceived and written and would be a novel in it's own right in others hands.

The second half of the novel is where we again encounter Rudi, and Rupert from Europe at Midnight, as Hutchinson attempts to tie up all the loose ends and explain exactly what has been going on. Rudi is tasked by both The Community and The Line to find out who the shadowy “third player” is in this world of pocket universes and topological manipulation. There are revelations aplenty, as it's revealed that people are not quite who you thought they were. The denouement, by narrowboat from Wolverhampton (of all places!), is quite unexpected and pleasing. But he also teases a possible continuation because it seems America might also be a player in this game.

It's another excellent thriller from Hutchinson. The entire series should, I think, be read as one long novel. It has many layers and levels and can be a bit confusing at times, but I think it would repay a reread. It's certainly one of the great feats of imaginative, speculative fiction this century.

Rudi abides.