Old Flames [Hardcover]

John Lawton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 25, 2002

Old Flames is a riveting spy novel sparked by historical events, with a twisting, turning plot that The Sunday Times (London) declares "a strange, thoughtful, quiet, intelligent spellbinder of a book, penetrating the very heart of betrayal." It is 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, son of a distinguished Russian emigre, 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. What was he doing under the hull of Khrushchev's ship, and who sent him there? Is the corpse that of Arnold Cockerell, a furniture salesman with a mysterious source of income and a bizarre fetish for scuba gear, or did Cockerell fake his own death to escape an unknown nemesis? To find the answers, Inspector Troy must venture into the heart of the M16. He encounters the trifling bureaucrats of Scotland Yard, fellow officers who may be sleeping with the enemy, and seductive identical twins. Meanwhile cold-blooded killings have started to follow him wherever he goes. Is it possible that the executioner is a fellow policeman-or, worse still, an old friend? In a world where secret codes lead to hidden Swiss bank accounts and an entire nation struggles to makes sense of itself in the wake of war, can anyone be trusted? Brilliantly evoking the atmosphere of the Cold War and London in the 1950s, Old Flames is a thrilling adventure of intrigue and suspense.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Third-timer Lawton (1963; Black Out) breathes new life into an increasingly creaky genre with this complex, evocative tale that's part Cold War thriller, part whodunit and part olde English lament. Reprising his role as a Russian aristoi-cum-Scotland Yard shamus, Freddie Troy returns from Black Out's wartime fog to the dreary 1956 London of Guy Burgess and Kim Philby, where the visiting Nikita Khrushchev is cheerfully threatening nuclear annihilation. Given his Russian background, Troy is roped into an official-escort-and-spy-while-you're-at-it routine. The Russian leader gets uncomfortably pally with Troy as they tour the city, giving him a secret code word for shadow correspondence; Troy is just beginning to feel relieved at Khrushchev's departure when the decomposed body of an English frogman who allegedly spied on Khrushchev's ship turns up. The pursuit of an insignificant spy killer leads Troy into a maze of double agents, money laundering and murder, not to mention possible corruption inside Scotland Yard and both MI5 and MI6. Along the way, the author cleverly uses his protagonist and a motley crew of secondaries to meditate on WWII nostalgia ("They remember all that was bad about it and go on celebrating it. And the good stuff... the way you class-conscious bastards pulled together... all that's forgotten. You used to know you were all in the same boat, now you don't even think you're on the same river") and the settling chill of the Cold War (" `The Bomb' was `THE BOMB'. Not HE or incendiary, not 500lb or ton, but megatons-a word still virtually incomprehensible to most people, often paraphrased in multiples of Hiroshima: twenty Hiroshimas; fifty Hiroshimas"). Lawton has created an effective genre-bending novel that is at once a cerebral thriller and an uproarious, deliciously English spoof.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

April 1956. Nikita Krushchev is in London on a diplomatic errand. Chief Inspector Frederick Troy of Scotland Yard is assigned as a bodyguard to the Russian leader. But he has a secret mission, too: Troy, fluent in Russian, is to spy on Khrushchev (who doesn't know the British cop speaks his language) by eavesdropping on private conversations and reporting back to his superiors. It's a tough assignment, with a handful of tricky moral qualms, and it gets a heck of a lot tougher when a Royal Navy diver turns up dead. Apparently the diver had been snooping around Krushchev's ship. Who sent him? And who killed him? And what does Troy's former lover, a U.S. Army officer turned KGB agent, have to do with all this? Lawton, whose earlier novel Black Out (1995) also featured Troy, vividly re-creates cold war Britain. Like Robert Harris' World War II novel Enigma (1995), this is jam-packed with detail and with many fully realized characters. The intriguing mystery plus the wonderfully re-created period setting equals first-class storytelling. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press (November 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871138646
• ISBN-13: 978-0871138644
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #976,205 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Historical Mystery Thriller, January 19, 2003

By 

R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Old Flames (Hardcover)

This is a fairly ambitious book in which the author seeks to combine three genres. It is primarily a mystery-thriller set in the context of the Cold War. Since the author is British, it returns to the staple preoccupation of British Cold War thrillers, the existence and nature of upper class traitors. It contains a serious attempt to depict mid-50s Britain, and is so also a historical novel. Finally, it is a psychological novel whose hero is approaching middle age and the examining his rather unsatisfactory personal life. This is quite an undertaking and Lawton succeeds fairly well on all counts, producing a very readable book. As a thriller, it is quite good and well above the average though not as good as LeCarre's best books. As a historical protrait, I suspect Lawton does quite well and it is faily good as a historical novel. The psychological element is similarly good and clearly intended to parallel some aspects of modern British history, which is a nice touch. To really appreciate this part of the book, you really have to Lawton's prior book, Blackout, which features many of the characters in Old Flames. Blackout is worth reading on it own. Old Flames also contains a couple of cute insider jokes. I'll buy anyone who can identify the wine joke a copy of the paperback edition.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars slow start but a sprint at the end, January 21, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Old Flames (Hardcover)

i read a few espionage novels each year, in amidst many mystery/police procedural novels. this is the best in the past few years. i liked a recently read alan furst novel, but i'd have to say this one was more satisfying. furst is good. lawton is very good. i didn't know the history, so the author's liberty with it didn't bother me. but i enjoyed the history and the author explains at the end that while he takes some liberties, he's not distorted events.

more cerebral than deighton; akin to le carre.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Blow too hard on embers and you get cinders in your eyes, not flames, November 26, 2006

By 

Grey Wolffe "Zeb Kantrowitz" (North Waltham, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Old Flames (Hardcover)

This would have been a great book had Lawton removed about 100 pages and stuck to the main story more. Having said that, the story itself is a good one and says alot about England in the middle 1950s, dealing with the loss of Empire and the destruction to their infrastructure in WWII.

Frederick Troy, who we met during WWII in "Black Out" is now an inspector and head of the 'Murder Squad' at Scotland Yard. His brother Roy, is a Labour MP, and shadow Foreign Minister. When a need for a russian speaker to 'assist' Special Branch in listening in on Kruschev during a 1956 visit, comes about, Troy is convinced to help out. Here is where a lot of the story could have been cut.

When the Russians claim that they were under surveillance by a frogman, his body doesn't turn up for five months. When Troy is asked by his 'widow' to prove the body isn't that of her husband, a series of events begin to enfold that will lead Troy to revelations he wished he never had to uncover. To say more would give away the best part of the story, which is well developed and presented in a believable manner.

Lawton, also has the distracting habit of putting ideas into the mouths of this characters that would be prescient if the book was written in 1956, but since it was written in 1995, the only ones who would be amazed are the other characters in the book (so why do it?). Lastly I find Lawton's treatment of heterosexual sex, and especially his ideas as to how woman look at sex to be a cross between Nabokov and a twelve year old. When reading some of his scenes, I have come to wonder if the man has ever had sex with a woman, or to that matter anyone other than himself. Just MHO.