Customer Reviews

Old Flames

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I had a hard time figuring out how to review this book. Maybe I tried to take it too seriously (British humor can catch me unaware, although I adore it). Or maybe I was just too lazy to keep track of the myriad plot reversals and story twists. But, in my defense, I felt Lawton had a tendency to overindulge in adjectives (in flagrant opposition to the book I finished just prior to OLD FLAMES, in which finding a sentence with both a noun and a verb was a cause for celebration). Despite that, he has crafted a complex, richly imagined tale set during the height of the infamous Cold War. And much of the feel of elaborate detailing may be due to his filmmaking background. At times, the book reads like a colorful script, the set described with painstaking particularity.

Imagine this: It is 1956, London. Chief Inspector Freddie Troy --- first introduced in BLACK OUT --- finds himself volunteering, under some duress, to be bodyguard for Nikita Kruschev during the Russian's visit to England. It's Troy's little secret that he understands Kruschev's language perfectly well and the British government wants him to keep it his secret, even listen in whenever possible and, naturally, report back any interesting tidbits. As assignments go, it's not too bad until a corpse shows up, that of an apparent Royal Navy diver killed while spying on Kruschev's ship. Troy undertakes to solve the problem of the frogman's identity and to unravel the mystery of his mission and who killed him. But, to complicate matters, nearly every direction he turns to search for answers leads him to another dead body. And each dead body reveals another layer of intrigue. Wedged in with his pursuit of clues, he squeezes in a few romantic encounters and some nostalgic ones. The relationships intertwine with the investigations, making them inseparable from one another.

OLD FLAMES is a virtual cornucopia of detail. It contains a plethora of personalities, plot twists and storylines. Characters abound. Lawton keeps you on your toes trying to figure out who's who, on what side and why. Motives must be questioned; backgrounds have to be taken into account. But, while intricately plotted, the book seemed a slow starter. In fairness, though, just about the time I was complaining vociferously about the plodding action, it hit dead on, full force and continued relentlessly. The wrap-up sneaked up on me. It kind of left me breathless. Take the time to walk through the first several chapters; you will find yourself running through the rest.

--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

I like books that have a sense of time and place. "Old Flames" has both in plenty. The book takes place at a time when the world was still fascinated by happenings in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev visits the UK and a supposed undercover operation sets murder in motion. Inspector Troy spends a night out on a pub crawl with the Soviet Leader, while a former "flame" reappears - Larissa Tosca. Troy navigates the demands of family and politics in a novel steeped in atmosphere. The cold war is just beginning; the British Empire is in its wanning last days, and the Soviet Union is a power to be reckoned with. Troy is a character utterly unimpressed by position and power, and he solves crimes no matter who may get "dirtied" along the way. Troy is also fairly a-moral and completely a-political, which makes him the perfect character to be in the midst of a political thriller.

I like John Lawton quite a lot. The Inspector Troy series is hard to follow (heck, Troy himself changes jobs many times in the course of the series). The books extend from WW II to the early 1960', but the novels were not published in order. To make matters worse, his books are published under different titles in the UK and the US. Arrrrgh. Nonetheless, Troy is a unique and enjoyable character - well worth the effort of sorting the books and publication dates out. The novels are all set in London, ranging from t he 1940's to the 1960's. There is a significant amount of historical material - and quite a bit of historical license as well. These are, after all , novels. I highly recommend this book, and all of the other Inspector Troy books.

I came late to this book. I'd read the one that came first (Black Out) and the one that comes after (White Death). This is the best of the three. But if you're reading it for the thrills you're wasting your time. Reading Lawton for thrills or worse for the 'whodunnit' is like reading Kurt Vonnegut and complaining that his sci-fi is nothing like Star Wars. Who dun it isn't even on the map. These books are the most sophisticated literary historicals to come out of England in 25 years. His dialogue fizzles, his metaphors meander, his characters bring history roaring to life. Old Flames takes as its plot the events of 1956 - when Britain invaded Egypt - a low tide in the Special Relationship between Britain and Uncle Sam. This is 2004. What, in letters 8 miles high, could be more topical?

This witty, quick-paced book offers much more than a surprising plot leading through several layers of suspense. The selection of characters is as rich as in the best of Agatha Christie's works, but their psychological portraits are much more sophisticated and fine-tuned. Lawton succeeds also in "smuggling" some insights into the mentality of the post-war England, and he treats the subject lighter, though equally deep, than John Le Carre. His literary style gives a pleasure in itself.

I actually contemplated calling in sick to stay home from work and finish this book. That is high praise indeed. Other reviewers have recounted the plot twists and turns. Why did I find this book so compelling? First, Lawton's evocation of place. I now live in a city where it rarely rains, but I remember summer downpours in England, when the rain bounces off the pavement soaking you from below as well as from above. Lawton brought that back to me. He also beautifully conveyed the strangeness and tranquility of "the vast Georgian pile that was Mimram House," Troy's country estate. Second, Frederick Troy is my favorite kind of protagonist: flawed and perfectly believeable. He is cynical, sexy, smart, gullible,and rebellious. He also has a wacky family as a supporting cast, including weird and creepy twin sisters. Lawton does a better job with male characters than with female characters. I actually detested Tosca and couldn't wait for something bad to happen to her (not that I'm saying it does...). Third, I was fascinated by the historical context -- post-War, Cold War Britain, which was so different from the United States. I always wondered how spies like Kim Philby were recruited and what motivated them. Now I know. I cannot wait to read the other books in Lawton's Frederick Troy series. I need to go back to "Black Out" and find out what happened to Diana Brack.

In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev visits England. Because he can speak Russian, having moved from there as a child, Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Frederick Troy is assigned as Khrushchev's escort, his (and the English) interpreter, and English spy. Most cops would loath the assignment, but Frederick even more so because of his espionage assignments during WW II and his gut belief that his father was a spy and traitor.

As Khrushchev gets ready to depart (to Troy's relief), in Portsmouth Harbour the mutilated body of a navy diver Lieutenant (R) Arnold Cockerell is found though his wife says the corpse is not him, but provides no explanation as to where he is. Evidence leads to the conclusion that Cockerell, a furniture salesman, apparently was a spy, but no one confesses that he was employed by them, leaving the police to wonder for whom did he work? Troy is involved in that case and wrapping up his spying on Khrushchev, but also has personal problems to contend with, as his family detests the past resurfacing and his former deadly KGB old flame making a return into his life.

OLD FLAMES is a powerful espionage tale that plays out on two levels. First, the story line is an atmospheric Cold War spy novel set at a time when England and the West are shocked by the Philby-Burgess scandals and Khrushchev is screaming nuclear burial. The ploy also provides a subtle humor to all the spy and counterspy activity. Troy keeps the tale together as the audience receives a terrific espionage thriller cleverly inter-wrapped with a probing police procedural like a Moebius Band.

Harriet Klausner

This was a long and rather tedious book to read. It never roared until the final chapters. The coincidences defied any reality. In sum, it is a book I cannot recommend. It will likely be my last John Lawton novel.