Old Flames (Inspector Troy, #2) in Espionage Aficionados

May 07, 2023 Sam Reaves rated it really liked it · review of another edition

John Lawton's Inspector Troy series is a sprawling epic of a work that covers British life in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Somewhat confusingly, the publication order of the series does not follow the chronology of the stories; Blackout, set during the Blitz in wartime London, introduced Troy, but after that Lawton started filling in back story and jumping ahead, going as far back as 1938 and as far ahead as 1960. If you want to read them in chronological order, check here: https John Lawton's Inspector Troy series is a sprawling epic of a work that covers British life in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Somewhat confusingly, the publication order of the series does not follow the chronology of the stories; Blackout, set during the Blitz in wartime London, introduced Troy, but after that Lawton started filling in back story and jumping ahead, going as far back as 1938 and as far ahead as 1960. If you want to read them in chronological order, check here: https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/ins...
It's a big, ambitious project; the books are crime or espionage novels with deep characterization and keen social observation, portraying a Britain profoundly changing under the trauma of a second world war following all too close on the heels of the first.
The hook is that Troy is a very un-English Englishman, being the son of a Russian aristocrat who brought the family to England after the Russian revolution and insisted his children adopt the values of the British upper class. Troy's siblings have done so more successfully than he (his brother becomes a member of Parliament); when Troy decides to join the police force it is a family scandal. Troy retains a skeptical outsider viewpoint that makes him the perfect conduit for Lawton's observations on British society.
Like the other entries in the series, Old Flames folds historical events into a fictional tale. In 1956, on the eve of the Suez crisis, Soviet premier Khrushchev made an official visit to Britain. That much is history; Lawton puts Troy in the story by having him assigned (because of his Russian fluency) to be part of the detatchment guarding Khrushchev while covertly spying on him. Also historical is a botched British spy operation in which a navy frogman was killed while spying on the Soviet destroyer that had brought Khrushchev to Portsmouth. Lawton makes this incident the linchpin of a complicated espionage plot involving a train of murders and leading Troy to dark secrets of the British elite, a rich vein to mine.
It's a fine espionage novel but also a novel of manners, richly detailed, not lightning-paced, requiring a little patience. It features Troy's family entanglements, complicated love life and angst. Lawton is using the form of the spy novel to produce sophisticated fiction about British life in the throes of the twentieth century. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Aug 06, 2011 Elli rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-criminal-activity, world-war-2, england, espionage, historical-fiction, detective, cold-war

The second of John Lawton's books featuring the period from the bombings of London in World War II through the cold war period through the eyes of Detective Troy who actually is the son of a prominent Russian immigrant family who had come to England much earlier, more towards the time of the Russian revolution although not White russians. As goes the people involved it's almost a fairy tale conception of real and realistic situations. The characters in the first book, Black Out, were remet and r ...more

Like · see review

Aug 09, 2020 Hans Ostrom rated it really liked it

Shelves: espionage

The scenes with Kruschev are worth the price of admission, and the backdrop of British politics is nicely drawn. Good plot, if a bit strained. I grew to like the protagonist, Inspector Troy.

Like · see review