Book Description

Customer Reviews (7)

A walk down memory lane
A walk down memory lane as Lawton visits his old characters and his old plots (including that of C.P. Snow's "Strangers and Brothers").Bit of a bore.

Another Lawton Jackpot.
Perhaps Lawton is an aquired taste - his books are long on atmosphere and the minutia of life in post war Britain but if you lived through these trying times you would know how well he portrays what was left of the class system, the "old boy" network and the idiocy of British politics. Once you have the taste of his books they become as addictive as chocolate and almost as much fun. Detective Troy is both severely human and astonishingly clever and Lawton paints him in glorious technicolor. He's a rogue, a magnet for beautiful women and not beyond bending the law almost to breaking point.
Readers should start with "Bluffing Mr. Churchill" and finish with "A Little White Death" and they, as I, will be totally in thrall.
Please Mr. Lawton if you are reading this, give us an encore!

Another good Troy story
I like everything Lawton writes in this series. They are quick reads that hold your interest through the characters. the plots and the superb settings of London in the last century. I am always anxious to read the next one to see where Troy goes.

the last of a good series
John Lawton has created a great detective series during and
following World War 2. He has also examined the cost of the War to English Society. This aspect along with a cast of interesting characters make the overall series excellant.

Something Else
This is the third, and from the look of it the last, in the Troy series. It's also the longest. The plot does take a while to get going, but that's becuse Lawton is at work upon a vast canvas - post-war British history, the evolution and generation of a culture. And he does it very, very well. He lifts the book out of the genre altogether to create 'Something Else' - a new genrre, if you like. To be moaning about kinky sex is to miss the point, that it's a book about morality and the last thing the sex is is superficial. There's not alot of it, but it is central to the ideas Lawton is dealing with... the moral crisis in a nation that creates its breaking point. Usually he garners comparisons to Le Carre or Deighton ... this is more Waugh or even Gore Vidal. This is a writer out of the top drawer. Not to be missed. ... Read more

Book Description
Praised for their riveting, ingenious plot twists, John Lawton's series of espionage thrillers featuring Chief Inspector Frederick Troy of Scotland Yard have an uncanny ability to place readers in the thick of history. Now in Flesh Wounds, an old flame has returned to 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. And he isn't the only one: bodies have started turning up around London, dismembered in the same bizarre and horrifying way. Is it possible that the blood trail leads back to Troy's own police force and into Troy's own forgotten past? Flesh Wounds, a compulsively readable thriller, finds one of our most able storytellers at the height of his game. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Excellent book, but note - this is actually UK book "Blue Rondo"
The strange thing with the Inspector Troy books is that they get different titles when they're released in the US to when they originally come out in the UK. So, if you're from the UK and excited that to find a new Inspector Troy story you're sorely mistaken -- this book was originally called "Blue Rondo" and was first published in paperback in 2005. Why the title "Blue Rondo" is unsuitable for an American audience I don't know.

But with that out of the way, "Flesh Wounds"/"Blue Rondo" is one of my favourites of the Troy books. Over time, we've got to love the characterisation, Police Surgeon Kolanciwicz is one of the foulest-mouthed people I've come across, but is hilarious to read, and Troy's attitude to most people seems to be that they can go and get lost.

The best so far.

excellant piece of the puzzle
John Lawton has created a thought provoking detective series
set in the UK during/after World War 2.He does a fine job at
developing/solving the crimes.He excels at weaving the social costs of the War into his stories.This is both informative and thought provoking.Be prepared for sex.

A perceptive and witty new entry in this delightful series
Frederick Troy was twenty-nine years old in 1944. While London was recovering from the bombings that ravished parts of the city, Det. Sgt. Troy was recovering from a gunshot that ravished his kidney and small intestine. Thus the theme is set for the latest novel in this mystery series as it compares and contrasts the fallout wrought by world warfare and gang warfare.

Ladslaw Kolankiewicz, arms expert and longtime friend, insists on teaching Troy how to defend himself. So even though Troy believes in an unarmed police force, he spends weeks becoming proficient in every handgun available because Kolankiewicz does not want to see him shot to death. Troy is surrounded by many such close friends and they remain together over the years as the novel picks up again in 1959.

It is then that one of his best mates is killed by a car bomb blast and Troy is injured as well. While on sick leave he spends an inordinate amount of time in bed, and not alone. Not only is he separated from his wife, but his lover, Foxx, hands him an ultimatum, and he is comforted by his doctor, Anna, in very non-medical fashion. Then along comes his old flame from America, who is now the wife of a presidential hopeful, but all Kate wants to do is spark up Troy again. Whew.

The first half of FLESH WOUNDS reads like a soap opera with tiny bubbles of the mystery barely visible. Even after mutilated bodies start showing up, the investigation takes a back seat to simultaneous affairs, historical detours and various manipulations designed to get Troy to intervene with his Opposition Party Leader brother, Rod, for political favors. But once our Chief Superintendent becomes serious about getting to the bottom of things, we are offered an excellent look at the police work that has made Scotland Yard a force to be reckoned with.

John Lawton has written an ambitious book that encompasses postwar politics, ruthless gang activities, old-fashioned police work, and relationships complicated enough to make Danielle Steel smile. Lawton is not afraid to push the envelope when it comes to the horrific violence of the underworld or to traditionally taboo sexual themes. The work is perceptive and witty while the English vernacular is fun and definitely increases the reader's store of epithets.

--- Reviewed by Maggie Harding

exhilarating British historical police procedural
World War II ended fourteen years ago, but London still shows the ruins.For Russian descendent Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard Freddie Troy, the conviction of crime kingpin King Alf should be a time of elation.Instead the war years have returned; his former lover Kitty Stilton is back in town but unavailable since she is married to American presidential hopeful, Calvin Cormack, another person from Freddie's espionage past.

Private investigator Joey Rork is in town to insure that Kitty behaves while in England.However, while London swings with Kitty as its biggest swinger, a war seems imminent to take over King's Alf's crime syndicate and American gamblers and crooners are in the middle of the action.When Rork and others are violently killed, Freddie leads the inquiries that take him back to 1944 when he was recovering from a bullet courtesy of his mistress and the antics of his family especially his promiscuous sisters and his brother, who has present day (1959 that is) ambitions.There is also links to when he was Sergeant Freddie Troy.Still, in spite of his efforts London with Ike coming is filling up with mutilated corpses.

FLESH WOUNDS is an exhilarating British historical police procedural that binds events and real persona or obviously disguised persona between World War II and 1959.The story line is overloaded with several subplots that at times may feel overwhelming, but not only come together but enables readers to compare 1944 and 1959 London.Freddie is terrific in both eras as he is the string that keeps the multitude of subplots tied together.Fans will appreciate this deep but dark look back to two distinct Great Britain's only fifteen years apart within a fine Noir.

... Read more