Tregillis, Ian -- Necessary Evil [e-book purchase]

Satisfactory wrap-up of alternate history with Nazi supervillains. I don't know how much I need to say; if you read the first two you've already decided to buy this, and if you didn't, ferchrissakes don't start with the third.

The plotting is perhaps a little awkward. At one point, to make certain dates line up, a character is thrown into an SS prison cell for a year. Chapter break, escape, return to Britain, plot continues. I forgive it. Gretel's fate could be viewed as deus ex machina, but since Gretel was a hair's-width beneath godhood for the first two books, it's hard to imagine any other resolution for her. Her arc is undeniably wrenching and, ultimately, satisfying -- in the bleached-bone way of these books -- so no complaints there either.

Ultimately, history is saved. If, afterwards, we look at the real WW2 and think "Whew, reality got off lightly" -- bite your tongue, but you know you thought it -- we'll just have to credit the author with a high talent for descriptive grim.


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