I’ve read all John Lawton’s novels, and have never discussed them with anyone. I remember formulating a post in my head several years ago asking why on earth publishers give novels different names in the US and the UK, after enthusiastically buying Bluffing Mr. Churchill only to discover that it was Riptide (and, no, I am not going to buy the claim that “Churchill” was added to make the book more familiar to Americans, any more than I buy the claim that Brits know better than Americans what a philosopher’s stone is — the number of Britons who buy a book because it is named after an Al Bowlly hit is vanishingly small). The animating device in each book is that Frederick Troy of the Metropolitan Police, son of a very wealthy Russian emgire, and brother of a future Labour MP, is confronted by some mystery that is connected to some major historical event or character (WWII, Suez, fictionalized versions of Profumo and the Kray twins). This presents lots of opportunity for rich and seemingly authentic historical detail, which is the real attraction of the books (the mock-Profumo case is done especially well). Real people, major and minor, appear here and there, always well drawn and just about plausible. They’re tautly written and literate. But I’ve never felt able to recommend one without reservation — they’re very, very well done, but the central drawback is the amorality and, frankly, the unlikeability, of Troy himself, who seems, at best, to have some sort of a screw loose. I confess that I found the last one (Flesh Wounds or Blue Rondo, depending on your preference) sufficiently unpleasant that I almost gave up (to see why it was so unpleasant you have to read the others first, unfortunately).

I’m glad that I came back. Second Violin is by some distance the best of the books. Set earlier than the others, in the mid-thirties (but hinting that an even earlier book might be on its way) it focuses almost exclusively on Troy’s brother Rod, a journalist friend of Hugh Greene’s, and still a future MP, and the efforts of a young and rather mysterious Jewish tailor called Joe to escape Austria after the Anschluss to Britain, escaping death several times only, eventually, to be sent to one of the Isle of Man internment camps, along with Rod. The mystery Troy, who is not the second violin of the title but might as well be, investigates seems to be a bit an afterthought for most of the book. The journeys from Vienna — Joe’s, Rod’s, and Sigmund Freud’s — dominate the book. In the other books the mysteries and the portraits of the age vie for attention — in this one the portrait dominates. Several slightly unlikely coincidences drive the plot forward, but Lawton cleverly distracts the reader by embedding them in quite realistic accounts of real and traumatic events — outrageous as the internment of a significant number of people who were only in Britain because they opposed, or had reason to fear, the Nazis, has always seemed to me, Lawton’s harrowing account of the train journey north really brings home how cruel and destructive it was. The mystery is successful and satisfying, not least because, for once, Lawton doesn’t let Troy get in the way at all.

Very curious what others who have read these (if anyone has — I’ve never met anyone!) think.