Nonesuch

Spufford (Cahokia Jazz) spins a lavish historical fantasy of a secretary and her lover battling time-traveling fascists on the eve of WWII. The story opens with daring Iris Hawkins enjoying a night out after a day of drudgery at her London financial firm. By chance, she meets brilliant engineer Geoff Hale, who’s besotted with gorgeous Nazi sympathizer Lady Lalage “Lall” Cunningham, and impulsively seduces him. After spending the night with Geoff, Iris sees a nightmarish inhuman figure keeping watch outside his house. She continues seeing Geoff, and the pair are visited by a friendly angel who warns them of a threat greater than Hitler: a cabal of British fascists including Lall are planning to use imprisoned angels, like the one Iris saw outside Geoff’s house, to go back in time and alter history for the worse. Spufford approaches the magical elements with lighthearted humor (“Oh, come on,” Geoff says to the angel. “No one has believed in the luminiferous aether since about, what, 1870! It doesn’t exist!” To which the angel replies, “I see that I have used terms you find anachronistic. Would you prefer it if I said that quantum tunneling was involved?”). As Iris enters a parallel world called Nonesuch to save London, Spufford sustains the tension all the way to the miraculous finale. Readers will be enthralled. (Mar.)