When my elder son was in high school, his project for the summer vacation was to write a summary of European history from the 1930s to 1950s under the assumption that Adolf Hitler had never been born. This rather impressed me, as I thought it to be an excellent way of determining if the students had absorbed the details they had been taught. After all, it would be an impossible task without a working knowledge of political activities and the big players who were prominent on the scene around that time. In Beneath Gray Skies, Hugh Ashton, a Japan-based writer and journalist, has proved—through the medium of an extremely satisfying book—that he paid attention in class by not only rewriting the history of Europe, but also that of the USA, albeit with Adolf Hitler alive and kicking.

The overriding premise of Beneath Gray Skies is that the American Civil War didn’t take place and that the United States of America as we know it today is two separate nations; with the USA occupying the northern part of the land mass it currently occupies in actuality and the Confederate States of America (CSA) occupying the southern part. The time is 1923 and Germany lay in tatters after defeat in the Great European War. Taking advantage of this disarray, the Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler, are beginning to flex their muscles, but lack the resources to impress their presence on the rest of Europe. Meanwhile, the Confederate States of America is a poverty-stricken yet resource-rich nation shunned by the rest of the world owing to its refusal to abolish slavery, and the only way to provide universal employment is through conscription into the armed forces at the early age of sixteen, which places a huge burden on national coffers. To put that more plainly, Nazi Germany possesses the technology and international clout that the CSA covets, and the CSA possesses the natural resources and manpower that Germany needs to build the country into a force to be reckoned with: perfect bedfellows, in other words.

Beneath Gray Skies examines the way in which war-impoverished Germany courts the racist government of the Confederate States of America with the promise of a gift of immeasurable value. To celebrate this alliance, the gift is to be delivered to the CSA by Hitler himself aboard an enormous Zeppelin-like airship. The governments of Great Britain and the United States of America are naturally against this alliance, but as it does not violate any international treaties, the job of thwarting the plan is left up to a handful of people who are both wittingly and unwittingly drawn into the action.

Beneath Gray Skies is an extraordinarily well-written piece of what-if mind candy that becomes more and more difficult to put down the further one reads. It has a rather unorthodox layout in that it is impossible to pinpoint a single protagonist—with several main characters taking the leading part alternately at different stages of the book—but I hasten to add that this in no way detracts from its charm. The style of writing is satisfyingly fluid and sometimes even whimsical, which is sure to delight those who enjoy a large dash of literary skill mixed in with their conspiracies, and I would certainly rank it among the better books that I have read this year.

Full marks to Mr. Ashton for writing an enthralling tale of, as the front cover of the book tells us, ‘a past that never happened.’ I enjoyed it immensely and look forward to his next work of fiction.

Beneath Gray Skies

Hugh Ashton

ISBN: 978-0-557-06053-5