British author Lawton's marvelously evocative series of mysteries about Det. Sgt. Freddie Troy, Anglo-Russian Londoner, have been written and/or published in such a confusing order that it's hard to determine where this one, originally published in the U.K. in 2004 as Blue Rondo-comes in the canon. Characters introduced in 2004's Bluffing Mr. Churchill, including Winston's distant cousin Bob Churchill, an ace gunsmith, play an important role here, as 29-year-old Troy, who's recovering from serious gunshot wounds, celebrates Christmas 1944 by taking shooting lessons from Bob. Troy's Russian aristocrat father-turned-British newspaper publisher has died; his mother's health is failing; his twin sisters seem to be intent on spreading their sexual favors around like caviar while their husbands are at the front. Then we jump ahead to the late 1950s, when London is becoming a mecca for American gamblers. Troy's old lover, the delightful ex-cop Kitty Stilton, returns to London as the wife of an important American politician with JFK overtones. There are characters based on (or at least inspired by) everyone from Frank Sinatra to Meyer Lansky, enough dismembered bodies to satisfy the most morbid imaginations and frequent flashes of sly wit and social conscience that illuminate a vanished world. Lawton's Troy series cries out to be made available with some kind of time line in order to give it, like Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy or the Jean-Louis St.-Cyr/Hermann Kohler books by J. Robert Janes, the genre classic status it deserves. Agent, Clare Alexander at Gillon Aitkin Associates. (Mar. 25) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Personal dysfunction complicates the investigation of a local crime family. The impending retirement of his superior Brock and a visit home to his frail mother lead fortysomething DCI Frederick Troy to contemplate his future. A Soviet native who emigrated to England as a child and worked in WWII as a spy, Troy still winces when he recalls getting shot by his titled mistress in 1944, and his rocky relationship with his controlling, promiscuous twin sisters Sasha and Masha. When a bomb in Brock's car kills him and sends Troy to the hospital, Foxx, his much younger girlfriend, urges him to quit Scotland Yard, then leaves him after he refuses. But he doesn't want long for female companionship. His old flame Kitty reenters his life; when Masha tearfully confesses that her husband is sleeping with Anna, another of Troy's exes, he allows his sister to seduce him; and he takes up again briefly with Anna. Confronting an American detective who's shadowing him, Troy learns that Rork's been hired to follow the wife of American presidential hopeful Cal Cormack--who happens to be Kitty--and keep tabs on her affair with crooner Vince Christy, a favorite of Danny Ryan, who controls a growing share of London's protection racket. Rork's violent death leads Troy to the dangerous Ryans. The overstuffed plot is anchored by Troy's fundamental decency--bruised and jaded, he's still an improbable romantic--and by smart, brittle prose from Lawton (Bluffing Mr. Churchill, 2004, etc.). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.