British author Lawton's marvelously evocative series of mysteries about Det. Sgt. Freddie Troy, Anglo-Russian Londoner, have been written and/or published in such a confusing order that it's hard to determine where this one, originally published in the U.K. in 2004 as Blue Rondo
—comes in the canon. Characters introduced in 2004's Bluffing Mr. Churchill
, including Winston's distant cousin Bob Churchill, an ace gunsmith, play an important role here, as 29-year-old Troy, who's recovering from serious gunshot wounds, celebrates Christmas 1944 by taking shooting lessons from Bob. Troy's Russian aristocrat father–turned–British newspaper publisher has died; his mother's health is failing; his twin sisters seem to be intent on spreading their sexual favors around like caviar while their husbands are at the front. Then we jump ahead to the late 1950s, when London is becoming a mecca for American gamblers. Troy's old lover, the delightful ex-cop Kitty Stilton, returns to London as the wife of an important American politician with JFK overtones. There are characters based on (or at least inspired by) everyone from Frank Sinatra to Meyer Lansky, enough dismembered bodies to satisfy the most morbid imaginations and frequent flashes of sly wit and social conscience that illuminate a vanished world. Lawton's Troy series cries out to be made available with some kind of time line in order to give it, like Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy or the Jean-Louis St.-Cyr/Hermann Kohler books by J. Robert Janes, the genre classic status it deserves. Agent, Clare Alexander at Gillon Aitkin Associates. (Mar. 25)
