A review by tonythep
A Man Lies Dreaming by Lavie Tidhar

5.0

In what can only be described as alternative history/pulp noir/Holocaust fantasy/Fascist porn, we meet seedy private detective Wolf roaming the streets of London in 1939. Wolf is part of a flood of refugees to England following the Communist takeover of Germany. Many Nazis have found safe haven in a Fascist friendly Britain on the verge of electing Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts to power. Over the course of the novel we meet Rudolph Hess, Klaus Barbie, Joseph Goebbels, Leni Riefenstahl, and others. They all are acquainted with our protagonist Wolf because he was once, of course, their Fuehrer. Ironies abound as Wolf/Hitler takes on a case for a Jewish heiress that leads him to swanky book parties, Zionist liberation groups, and Nazi S & M clubs. Of course, this all could be going on inside the head of a Jewish pulp fiction writer in Auschwitz. The result of all this is one of the most imaginative and disturbing books I've ever read.