The setting of “War Book” couldn’t be further from the sun-dappled Norfolk countryside of Tom Harper’s debut, “The Scouting Book for Boys” (beloved here at The Playlist, but little seen at home in the U.K., and even littler seen in the U.S.). The action (if we can call it that) of his sophomore effort is almost entirely confined to a single room, where a group of mid-level British civil servants, standing in for more important government ministers, run through the protocol required in the event of a nuclear attack.
Over the course of three days, they debate the appropriate humanitarian and military responses to a hypothetical crisis, and as the imaginary stakes are raised, what initially starts out as glib political horse-trading turns into something with far greater moral and ethical weight—who should get priority in the event that medical supplies are rationed, whether the U.K. should stand side by side with the United States, and ultimately, and most hotly contested, whether or...
