Book Log 2013 #13: The Africa Reich by Guy Saville

I spent a good five minutes trying to decide if I wanted to read this, based on the Swastika Rule - I don't know the actual percentage, but the cover looks to be about 60 percent swastika - but I eventually decided to give it a go, as I wasn't finding much else of interest at the library. Turns out the rule didn't quite apply here, as the book was better than the rule would suggest.

As you can guess by the title, Germany won World War II and has established a strong foothold in Africa, where they threaten the weaker colonies of those who lost (or were neutral) during the war. The British hatch a plot to weaken the Germans in Africa, and turn to a quasi-retired special forces officer to lead the mission. He opts to do this one final mission so he can secure his preferred future of running an orchard and marrying his already-married girlfriend.

As you can imagine, things don't quite go as planned, and the team finds itself stranded deep in German-held Kongo, their best bet for escape an overland trek to Portuguese-held Angola. Along the way they fight off the Nazis, team up with the local resistance, and try to learn just why their plan was foiled.

At times there's a cartoonish level of violence, which pairs with some A-Team level of injury avoidance to make disbelief that much harder to suspend. For the most part, though, it's a perfectly serviceable alt-history novel that's a decent commuter read. It's the first part of a planned trilogy, and I have to give kudos to the author for his frank blog post as to why the second installment is lagging. Hard enough to imagine putting a quarter-million words to paper, never mind blowing it up and starting fresh.