Showing results by narrator "Lewis Hancock" in All Categories

Lawton's 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 Frederick's brother, Rod, who learns upon receiving an internment letter that despite having grown up in England he is Austrian-born. 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.

John Lawton's A Lily of the Field is a brilliant historical thriller from a master of the form. The book follows two characters - Meret Voytek, a talented young cellist living in Vienna at the novel's start, and Dr. Karel Szabo, a Hungarian physicist interned in a camp on the Isle of Man. In his seventh Inspector Troy novel, Lawton moves seamlessly from Vienna and Auschwitz to the deserts of New Mexico and the rubble-strewn streets of postwar London, following the fascinating parallels of the physicist Szabo and musician Voytek as fate takes each far from home.

An unforgettable tale of a woman at her most vulnerable by Agatha Christie, written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Agatha Christie, famous for her ingenious crime novels, also wrote about crimes of the heart. Written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, Christie’s tales of romantic...

In April 1956, at the height of the Cold War, Khrushchev and Bulganin, leaders of the Soviet Union, are in Britain on an official visit. Chief Inspector Troy of Scotland Yard is assigned to be Khrushchev's bodyguard and to spy on him. Soon after, a Royal Navy diver is found dead and mutilated beyond recognition in Portsmouth Harbor. Troy embarks on an investigation that takes him to the rotten heart of MI6, to the distant days of his childhood, and into the dangerous arms of an old flame.

London, 1944. While the Luftwaffe makes its final assault on the already battered British capital, Londoners rush through the streets, seeking underground shelter in the midst of the city's blackout. When the panic subsides, other things begin to surface along with London's war-worn citizens. A severed arm is discovered by a group of children playing at an East End bomb site, and when Scotland Yard's Detective Sergeant Frederick Troy arrives at the scene, it becomes apparent that the dismembered body is not the work of a V-1 rocket.

It’s London, the Swinging '60s, and by all rights, MI6 spy Joe Wilderness should be having as good a time as James Bond. But alas, his postings are more grim than glamorous. Luckily, Wilderness has a knack for doing well for himself even in the most unpromising postings - though this has gotten him into hot water in the past. A coffee-smuggling gig in divided Berlin was a steady money-maker, but things went pear-shaped when he had to smuggle a spy back to the KGB instead.

It is 1941. Wolfgang Stahl, an American spy operating undercover as an SS officer, has just fled Germany with Hitler's henchmen on his trail. He is carrying valuable cargo - the blueprint of the Führer's secret plan to invade Russia. Stahl's man in the American embassy, the shy and sheltered Calvin M. Cormack, is teamed with a boisterous MI5 officer, Walter Stilton, to find the spy and bring him to safety. Their investigation takes them across war-torn London, from the shelled-out blocks to the ubiquitous pubs to the underground counterfeiting shops; and in Cormack's case, into the arms of Kitty, his partner's rambunctious daughter.

From “one of the best authors of espionage fiction” (The Wall Street Journal), a book of deception and money to be made amid the rubble of World War II. From an author whose books have been described as “one of the great pleasures of modern spy fiction” by Slow Horses author Mick Herron...

At 12.16 a.m. on Wednesday, June 5, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded in the service pantry of the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. A 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, was found holding the smoking gun and convicted of murder. That is the official history - but Tim Tate and Brad Johnson have uncovered a different story.

Wilderness' newest operation will take him back to Berlin, which is now the dividing line between the West and the Soviets. A backstory of innocence and intrigue unravels, one in which Wilderness is in and out of Berlin and Vienna like a jack-in-the-box. The Unfortunate Englishman is a thrilling tale of Khrushchev, Kennedy, a spy exchange...and 10,000 bottles of fine Bordeaux. What can possibly go wrong?

Charlotte is a British expatriate who has recently settled in the nation’s capital with her second husband, a man who looks intriguingly like Clark Gable, but her enviable dinner parties and soirées aren’t the only things she is planning. Meanwhile, Charlie Leigh-Hunt has been posted to Washington as a replacement for Guy Burgess, last seen disappearing around the corner and into the Soviet Union. Charlie is soon shocked to cross paths with Charlotte, an old flame of his, who, thanks to all her gossipy parties, has a packed pocketbook full of secrets she is eager to share.

London, 1958. Chief Superintendent Frederick Troy of Scotland Yard, newly promoted after good service during Nikita Khrushchev's visit to Britain, is not looking forward to a European trip with his older brother, Rod. Rod has decided to take his entire family on the "grand tour" for his 51st birthday: a whirlwind of restaurants, galleries, and concert halls from Paris to Florence to Vienna to Amsterdam. But Frederick Troy gets only as far as Vienna. It is there that he crosses paths with an old acquaintance, a man who always seems to be followed by trouble: Guy Burgess.

Joe Wilderness is a World War II orphan, a condition that he thinks excuses him from common morality. Cat burglar, card sharp, and Cockney wide boy, the last thing he wants is to get drafted. But, in 1946, he finds himself in the Royal Air Force, facing a stretch in military prison...when along comes Lt Colonel Burne-Jones to tell him MI6 has better use for his talents. Posted to occupied Berlin, interrogating ex-Nazis, and burgling the odd apartment for MI6, Wilderness finds himself with time on his hands and the devil making work.

An old flame has returned to Chief Inspector Frederick Troy's life: Kitty Stilton, wife of an American presidential hopeful. Private eye Joey Rork has been hired to make sure Kitty's amorous liaisons with a rat pack crooner don't ruin her husband's political career. But he also wants to know why Kitty has been spotted with Danny Ryan, whose twin brothers, in addition to owning one of London's hottest jazz clubs, are said to have inherited the crime empire of fallen mobster Alf Marx. Before Rork can find out, he meets a gruesome end.

There's a killer on the loose in the Lake District, and the calm of an English summer is shattered. For newly qualified crime-scene investigator Grace McColl, it's both the start of a nightmare and the chance to prove herself after a mistake that cost a life. For detective constable Nick Weston, recently transferred from London, it's an opportunity to recover his nerve after a disastrous undercover operation that left him for dead. And for a lonely, loveless teenage girl, Edith, it's the start of a twisted fantasy - one she never dreamed might come true.

The traditional Appleby Horse Fair hosts the largest gathering of Gypsies and Travellers in Europe. The sudden influx of more than 40,000 visitors into the small Lakeland town has always caused its share of problems. But it’s also known as a good time to settle old scores. This year, the Fair brings with it with the discovery of two bodies near the River Eden - one very recent and another a long-time buried. As CSI Grace McColl and Detective Nick Weston search for answers, old secrets are revealed, old wounds are reopened and tensions threaten to erupt into violence.

Bereft of the three people she has held most dear - her mother, her husband and her daughter - Celia is on the verge of suicide. Then one night on an exotic island she meets Larraby, a successful portrait painter, and through a long night of talk reveals how she is afraid to commit herself to a second chance of happiness with another person, yet is not brave enough to face life alone. Can Larraby help Celia come to terms with the past or will they part, her outcome still uncertain?

Meret Voytek, pupil of professor Viktor Rosen, a Jew in exile from Germany, watches as Vienna comes under Nazi rule and the repercussions for the Jews. Across Europe, Dr Karel Szabo, a Hungarian physicist, has been interned on the Isle of Man. Rescued by the Americans, they recruit him in building an atomic bomb. Moving from Vienna and Auschwitz to the deserts of New Mexico to London, fate carries the enemy alien, Szabo and gentile Voytek, across the battlefields of the destructive war.

Turner Raines is Mr Heartbreak. Everybody leaves him. They walk out, they run away...they die. When his oldest friend, Mel Kissing, dies with an ice pick through his skull, Raines picks up the thread and sets out to ask 'who?' and 'why?' But this is America in 1969, and one death is just a drop in the ocean. The Vietnam War is ripping the country to pieces, the Woodstock Festival is in full swing and Norman Mailer is standing as candidate for mayor of New York.

It's 1960s London, and spy Joe Wilderness should be living like James Bond. But alas, in the wake of an embarrassing disaster for MI6, Wilderness has been posted to remote northern Finland in a cultural exchange program to promote Britain abroad. Bored and with nothing to spy on, he strikes a deal with his old KGB pal Kostya to smuggle vodka into the USSR - but there is something fishy about Kostya's sudden appearance. Could it be connected to cobalt mining, a critical component in atomic bomb casings? Wilderness's posting is getting more interesting, but more dangerous too....