Blue Rondo [Hardcover]

'The 50s atmosphere is acutely reproduced by John Lawton, and there is a ripe stench of corruption all around as lucrative post-war redevelopment gets under way...Classy stuff.' (Matthew Lewin GUARDIAN (23.4.05) )

'John Lawton has created, in Freddie Troy one of the most intriguing detectives in modern crime fiction...Lawton's writing is hypnotic...he deserves to be ranked with the best.' (Mike Ripley BIRMINGHAM POST (30.4.05) )

'The period atmosphere, illustrated with credible characters, is impeccable and the writing elegantly precise.' (Susanna Yager TELEGRAPH )

'[this] book has a pace and a flavour that is racy, rakish and addictive.' (LITERARY REVIEW (June 2005) )

'Lawton's fiction is clearly comparable to Jake Arnott's, both in the period it covers and in reworking the stories of real people. The difference is that whereas Arnott earnestly attempts a counter-history of the post-war decades, Lawton seems more intent on having fun with them through a kind of fantastic reinvention.' (John Dugdale SUNDAY TIMES (29.5.05) )

'It's a sprightly, captivating mix, stylishly written...This guy is seriously good.' (www.twbooks.co.uk )

'It's a sprightly, captivating mix, stylishly written...This guy is seriously good.'

'The period atmosphere, illustrated with credible characters, is impeccable and the writing elegrantly precise.'

'It's a sprightly, captivating mix, stylishly written...This guy is seriously good

'The period atmosphere, illustrated with credible characters, is impeccable and the writing elegantly precise.'

The new 'Troy' from John Lawton is a gem. The backdrop is London in the late 1950s. The East End is ripe for redevelopment; the property sharks are buying up the bombsites and Victorian terraces; corruption is rife; Macmillan is PM of a shaky Tory government; Gaitskell expects to succeed as the first Labour PM for almost a decade to the delight of Troy's brothers, one an MP, the other a Fleet Street editor. Troy's last big case (told in Lawton's OLD FLAMES) had been to protect the Russian leaders, Bulganin and Khrushchev, on their first visit to Britain in 1956. Now a series of increasingly sadistic murders occurs on his old East End patch; a wartime girlfriend, who became a GI bride - since married to a Democratic Presidential candidate - reappears into his life. Nor is she the only woman to occupy his bed in the tiny house in Goodwin's Court, St Martin's Lane. When 'Ike', the retiring US President, makes a farewell visit to London, all Troy's worlds combine in a frightening cresendo of corruption and violence. The title, Blue Rondo, is taken from a Dave Brubeck record.

'Case closed' - the words every copper wants to see stamped on a file, but one case Troy knew he'd never be able to put behind him. In 1944 he'd shot and killed his mistress Diana Brack. Why wouldn't she tumble through his dreams for the rest of his life? ... it was vengeance ... of a kind. Fifteen years later the dream spills out into reality. The London of 1959 is still littered with the scars of war, a city and a nation nascent, ready to be born again into a booming, bold Britain ... entrepreneurs are waiting in the wings, the old guard is ripe for toppling ... nowhere more so than among the organised gangs of the East End. When 'the King', Alf Marx, is sent down for life, the East End is left wide open. The arresting officer is assassinated, the next 'king' disappears without trace and in his place emerges a new breed of young thug, reared in the hardship of war, knowing nothing but want from childhood, wanting everything ... and taking everything. Troy become a casualty - a bystander caught in the blast and put on the sick list again. His girlfriend and his boss both want him to retire, and it looks as though his career might be over. But the past rears up - an old mistress returns from twenty years in America - an amoral sophisticate, dangerously well-connected in Washington, determined to pick up where she left off, pursued by the most inept gumshoe New York has to offer. And the dream spills out, the things Troy did as a young man come back to haunt him, and far too many people seem to say 'I told you so.' Time to put up or shut up. Time to get back in the fray. Time to kill. John Lawton lives in Derbyshire

[The Troy novels} add up to an enjoyablly subversive portrait of mid-century Britain, its places visualised with photographic precision and events described with the authority of a historian.' - Jessica Mann, The Spectator

A former TV producer, and for past five years full-time writer.