This is a fascinating book about The League of Nations up to and during World War II. Told through the eyes of Edith Alison Campbell Berry, an Australian Secretariat attached to the Under Secretary General, it affords a view of the league from the inside as it struggles to perform its duties in the face of seeming failure. First the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and then the Italian invasion of Abyssinia occur despite the existence of the League. We are witness to the seeming vain hopes of diplomacy and sanctions and the justifications of their use by the league in the face of a historical reality of a world rapidly rearming. The League of Nations was formed by the victorious allies in the aftermath of World War I at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. It was headquartered in Geneva where most of this story is set.

She made a gesture of bleakness. "In the days when we were really achieving things we were in the shabby Palais Wilson which I also loved. Now in these inglorious days we are ineffective and frustrated-but living in a Palace. And I'm being gloomy again."

Much of this story however also concerns itself with the personal relationships of Edith. Married to a journalist named Robert towards whom she adopts a policy of non-recognition, she resumes a pre-marital relationship with a bi-sexual, cross dressing man named Ambrose. He is the man who she is most comfortable with and eventually she decides to divorce Robert despite his making a last ditch effort to offer her a normal life as a wife and mother. We are introduced to the Molly Club which is a haven for people of Ambrose's type and is a magnet in Vienna for people with underground lifestyles. The club also assists the war effort by providing fake visas to those wishing to escape occupied territories into or through neutral Switzerland.

Among all its diverse functions as a corner of jolliness in an ugly world, the Club was, as Ambrose had said, a place where most people pretended that there was no war - just as, before the war they'd pretended there was no puritanical Switzerland outside the door. And that there was no day, only night.

Compiling a largely fictitious account of life within the League of Nations can serve many purposes. The documentation of the reaction of its members to the escalation and eruption of war is fascinating in its own right. The members are faced with the grim reality that the first attempt to prevent war by international co-operation is a complete failure. They pass the war in Geneva maintaining a semblance of the League's continuity and relevance. In the end we see just how relevant the world judges what remnants of the League remain. Dark Palace is an extraordinarily ambitious work. It is both entertaining and informative. Its foray into fictional possibilities lends it a lightness that belies the bigger issues at hand. Because of its impact as a novel it deserves to be read and highly esteemed.