A Little White Death [Hardcover]

John Lawton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2006

The latest novel from the master spy novelist John Lawton follows Inspector Troy, now Scotland Yard’s chief detective, deep into a scandal reminiscent of the infamous Profumo affair. 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. Two of these women just happen to be sleeping with a senior man at the Foreign Office and a KGB agent. But on the eve of the verdict a curious double case of suicide drags Troy back into active duty. Beyond bedroom acrobatics, the secret affairs now stretch to double-crosses and backroom deals in the halls of Parliament, not to mention murder. It’s all Troy can do, fighting off some bad habits of his own, to stay afloat in a country immersed in drugs and up to its neck in scandal.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

London in the swinging '60s provides the setting for this latest in Lawton's series featuring Scotland Yard lawman Frederick Troy. Troy finds himself a reluctant attendee at several country weekends where a flashy acquaintance, Dr. Patrick Fitzpatrick, holds sybaritic court. The aristocratic Troy has been, equally reluctantly, attempting to acclimate himself to the wide-open atmosphere of the new England, a country in the grip of a seismic social and sexual upheaval. Fitz and several government cronies have been shagging a pair of beautiful twins, the Ffitch sisters, and the equally lovely but underage Clover Browne. When Fitz is arrested for "immoral earnings and procurement," Troy escapes the media spotlight, confined to a sanatorium with a nasty case of tuberculosis. Troy rallies to investigate after several participants in the Fitz scandal are found dead. The whodunit phase takes several hundred pages to ignite, but Lawton is such an entertaining, literate storyteller it doesn't really matter. Once the now frail Troy steps in, neither threats, beatings, near-drowning nor shooting can frighten him off the case. New readers who fall under the considerable spell of the indefatigable Troy can seek out earlier adventures, Black Out, Old Flames, Riptide, Flesh Wounds and Bluffing Mr. Churchill.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Originally published in 1998 but now appearing for the first time in the U.S., Lawton's follow-up to Black Out (1995) and Old Flames (2002) weaves the Profumo Affair and the Kim Philby spy scandal into a stylish novel of intrigue and manners spanning the corridors of power and the back alleys of vice, circa 1963. A brief foray into London nightlife, swinging-sixties style, sidelines Scotland Yard Inspector Troy with a wasting disease until the plight of a playboy doctor and a suspicious suicide pact drag Troy back into the game. While some details of British history may be lost on American readers, there are ample conspiracies and red herrings to satisfy fans of the erudite thrillers of Robert Wilson, Charles McCarry, and John le Carre. The pleasure of Lawton's ambling period piece resides at least as much in the detailed texture of life and society and in the urbane repartee (the aristocratic Troy even holds his own in a discussion with Dame Rebecca West on the illusory nature of sexual liberation) as it does in the complexities of a soundly sprung plot. Recommended for most libraries. David Wright
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press (January 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871139324
• ISBN-13: 978-0871139320
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,254,520 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More drama then thriller, March 7, 2001

By 

Alexander Gitlits (Moscow, Russia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Little White Death (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the third book in John Lawton's series and you should read it ONLY after "Black Out" and "Old Flames". First of all, it deals a lot with the events and characters of the those novels, and second...it is not as intriguing as those two books. I liked it, but that's because I am fond of the characters, especially Troy himself. Starting the book, I expected to find a web of intrigue, but the events mentioned on the back cover happened only after several hundred pages! Until then we had Troy's reflections on life, death, etc. What we have here is a good, clever novel about the 60's, just don't expect it to be a thriller it isn't.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Something Else, March 1, 2006

By 

N. J. Lockett (New York City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Little White Death (Hardcover)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Lawton Jackpot., June 7, 2007

By 

Leslie A. Jones (York, Pa) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Little White Death (Paperback)

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!