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As London braces for WWII, a string of murdered rabbis draws Inspector Troy into a mystery that “sets pulses racing and the jaded responses tingling” (The Irish Times).
One of today’s top historical espionage writers, considered “as good as Le Carré” (Chicago Tribune) and “a master,” John Lawton adds another spellbinding thriller to his Inspector Troy series with Second Violin (Rocky Mountain News).
The sixth installment in the series, Lawton’s new novel opens in 1938 with Europe on the brink of war. In London, Frederick Troy, newly promoted to the prestigious murder squad at Scotland Yard, is put in charge of rounding up a list of German and Italian “enemy aliens” that also includes his brother, Rod, who learns upon receiving an internment letter that he was born in Austria despite having grown up in England. Hundreds of men are herded by train to a neglected camp on the Isle of Man. And as the bombs start falling on London, a murdered rabbi is found, then another, and another . . .
Amid great war, murder is what matters. Moving from the Nazi-infested alleys of prewar Vienna to the bombed-out streets of 1940 London, and featuring an extraordinary cast of characters, Lawton’s thriller is a suspenseful and intelligent novel, as good a spy story as it is an historical narrative.
“Smart and gracefully written.” —Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post
“One of the joys of reviewing crime fiction is that now and then one comes across . . . an author whose writing sets pulses racing and the jaded responses tingling. . . I entreat you, dear reader, to search out John Lawton and cherish him to your bosom, for he is truly an original.” —Irish Times
“Weaving complex characters and plot threads from Kristallnacht to Fleet Street, [Lawton] builds a suspenseful story that long remains in the reader’s memory.” —Library Journal
“An excellent WWII historical thriller . . . Fans will appreciate John Lawton’s brisk expanded Frederick Troy thriller that fascinatingly goes back a decade plus from the usual Freddie Troy police procedurals.” —Midwest Book Review
“Smart and gracefully written . . . It has been Lawton’s achievement to capture, in first-rate popular fiction, the courage and drama—and the widespread tomorrow-we-maydie exuberance—of that terrible and thrilling moment in twentieth-century history.” —Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post
John Lawton is the author of seven previous novels, including Black Out and A Little White Death. He lives in a remote hilltop village in Derbyshire, England.