Lily of the Field, by John Lawton, $24
Earlier books in this compelling series, featuring Freddie Troy of Scotland Yard and focusing on various aspects of World War II and its aftermath in England, have stayed pretty much in Britain. But this one opens in Vienna in 1934, where Meret Voytek, a gifted young cellist, becomes the protegee of Viktor Rosen, a German Jew who is a master pianist.
The narrative moves from there to Ausch witz, where Meret is interned as a political prisoner, to the Isle of Man, where England housed its German POWs, to Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project and finally to London, ending in 1948.
It’s a large canvas, and Lawton uses it brilliantly. Troy enters the story at its halfway point, investigating the murder of a Polish artist shot by a miniature pistol on the Underground. To Troy, it looks as if the victim might be a Soviet spy, but MI5 quickly scuttles this notion.
It would take more than a few sentences to even begin to suggest the plot, but spies — or spooks, as Troy dismissively calls them — are at the heart of the book, and to his mind no spooks are good, especially not the Brits.
But Lawton paints a slightly more sympathetic portrait of those recruited at the war’s end by the Soviets, who betray their countries either from force of circumstance or cockeyed idealism having to do with the balance of power between the U.S. and Russia.
The scenes at Auschwitz, where Meret is allowed to survive so she can play in the camp orchestra, and at Los Alamos, where Hungarian physicist Karel Szabo works on the first atomic bomb, are particularly effective, but it’s also good to reconnect with Troy, a maverick copper who is the son of wealthy Russian emigres and the brother of a Labour MP.
Lawton has been named by the Daily Telegraph as one of the “50 crime writers to read before you die,” and we couldn’t agree more. He’s one of the most original and overlooked writers in the genre.
Bryant & May Off the Rails, by Christopher Fowler, $25
What a perfect background for a Christopher Fowler mystery — the London Underground, with its intricate mazes, frequent dead ends, phantom stations and arcane history, all mirroring the plot of this latest book. The Peculiar Crimes Unit has been given a new lease on life, provided that they work in utter secrecy and independence, which is exactly how senior — very senior — detectives Arthur Bryant and John May like it.
But the catch is they must solve the murder of a PCU detective within a week for the department to stay alive. Bryant and May, perhaps the most memorable detectives in the literature, once again rise above the ravages of advanced age and budget constraints to tackle this new case.
Fowler, who must know more about the history of London than any fiction writer alive, works all kinds of fascinating details into the dazzling narrative and once again fashions a challenging puzzle that turns out to be breathtakingly simple in its surprising solution.
But as clever as the plot is, the real stars of the book are Bryant, a cranky, creaky shambles of a man, and May, his slightly younger, slightly more conventional, but equally brilliant partner, as well as a stellar cast of supporting characters. Don’t even think of missing this one if you love traditional detective novels and inspired writing.
Blue Lightning, by Ann Cleeves, $24.99
In the concluding volume of the author’s Shetland Islands quartet, Inspector Jimmy Perez takes his fiancee to meet his parents in Fair Isle, the tiny island where he was born and was always expected to make his home. The island is overrun with bird-watchers, whose headquarters are a field center that doubles as a bed and breakfast, presided over by a somewhat flamboyant celebrity naturalist whose body is found early on in the book.
Jimmy is pulled away from Fran and his family to investigate the woman’s death, made all the more difficult when a storm cuts the island off from the outside world and he must go it alone.
The author uses this closed setting with great skill, beautifully capturing the remote island atmosphere and the obsessive “twitchers,” or bird-watchers, who are visiting it. It’s been a splendid series, and we are sad to see it end, especially on the somber note that it does.
Tom and Enid Schantz are freelancers who write regularly about new mysteries.
