Reviews
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 was 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. 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.
'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)
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