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England in 1963 is a country set to explode. The old guard, shocked by the habits of the war-baby youth - sex, drugs, and rock and roll - sets out to fight back. The battle moves uncomfortably close to Chief Inspector Troy. While Troy is on medical leave for a nasty case of tuberculosis, the Yard brings charges against an acquaintance of his, a hedonistic doctor with a penchant for voyeurism and uninhibited young women.

In 1978, the bloody conflict in Northern Ireland, known as The Troubles, had reached a boiling point. Hundreds of members of the Irish Republican Army, determined to drive the hated British out of the province—killing soldiers and police, detonating bombs, while arming themselves with firearms and explosives—had been arrested and incarcerated in the notorious British prison known as the Maze.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

English Language Learning, but not as you know it - Leadership and Management content, Coaching topics ... as well as creative writing, art, sport, comedy, poetry, crafts, plenty of other stuff ...

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.

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.

Spring 1941: After 10 years spying for the Americans, Wolfgang Stahl disappears during a Berlin air raid. The Germans think he's dead. The British know he's not. But where is he? MI6 convince US Intelligence that Stahl will head for London, and so Captain Cal Cormack, a shy American 'aristocrat', is teamed with Chief Inspector Stilton, fat, 50, and convivial, and between them they scour London.

March 1938. The Germans take Vienna without a shot being fired. Covering Austria for the English press is a young journalist named Rod Troy. Back home his younger brother joins the CID as a detective-constable. November 1938. Kristallnacht. The Jews leave Vienna - Sigmund Freud with an American escort on a sleeper train, Josef Hummel tied to the underside of a box car.

1963. England is about to explode. An ageing hack defects to Russia. A cabinet minister resigns. A young woman takes an overdose. A Harley Street physician blows out his brains. Commander Troy investigates. But what with the sex and the drugs, he finds that he's up to his neck in the mess, personally and professionally. The damn thing might blow up in his face, and the English can be so unforgiving of a good scandal.

A new breed of gangster appears and the battle for the East End begins. Chief Superintendent Frederick Troy is quite literally caught in the crossfire, when he is hit by the blast from a car bomb.

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 the official bodyguard and to spy on the Soviets. Soon after, a Royal Navy diver is found dead in a mutilated state in Portsmouth Harbour. 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.

It is 1958. Newly promoted Chief Superintendent Frederick Troy of Scotland Yard is on a Continental trip with his older brother, Rod, who is taking the entire family on 'the Grand Tour' for his 51st birthday. After a concert in Vienna, Frederick Troy is approached by an old friend - Soviet spy Guy Burgess, who says something extraordinary: 'I want to come home.' MI5 send an agent to debrief Burgess - but the man is gunned down yards from the embassy, and Troy finds himself a suspect. As he fights to prove his innocence, Troy finds that Burgess is not the only ghost who returns to haunt him.

Having shot someone in the chaos of 1963 Berlin, Joe Wilderness finds himself locked up, with little chance of escape. But an official pardon through his father-in-law, Burne-Jones, a senior agent at MI6, means he is free to go. His newest operation will take him back to Berlin, now the dividing line between the West and the Soviets. When the Russians started building the Berlin Wall in 1961, two 'Unfortunate Englishmen' were trapped on opposite sides. In 1965 there is a plan to exchange the prisoners on Berlin’s bridge of spies.

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?