Blue Rondo by
John Lawton
hbk out April 05
Published by Weidenfeld
at £12.99
To enter the world of John Lawton, not having read him before, is not a
comfortable process. The short opening section (including prologue) for
instance, set in bomb-torn London in the closing months of WWII, is
unnecessarily convoluted. There is also a large cast of characters, and, as we
get to grips with its central figure, Frederick Troy, Lawton's unconventional
policeman hero featured in four previous novels, we quickly sense the history
that is shared between them all.
No bad thing of course (and a rare quality, come to that). And that opening
section produces two key images. The first is of a group of war-time London
youngsters, "eight cherubic faces... sixteen ruthless eyes" bribed by Troy to
find the rest of a corpse of which he has discovered only a single part. The
second is of a group of orphaned children, cannibalistic and "stripped of all
morality", survivors of total war and the bleak Siberian winter. The inference
is clear: how will such amorality become apparent in post-war Britain?
The answer comes fourteen years later. The team at Scotland Yard of
which Troy, now Chief Superintendent, is a part, is congratulating itself on
finally putting away East End crime boss Alf Marx. But as the chief of the
Serious Crime Squad leaves the party, his car explodes, he is killed and Troy
is seriously injured.
Thus the rondo begins, though initially more in the style of Arthur Schnitzler
than reflecting the brazen modernism of the tune by pianist Dave Brubeck
commemorated in the book's title. Recuperating at home, the well-connected
Troy is tended and bedded by a succession of old girl-friends (not to mention
a distraught sister), visiting the odd crime scene to keep his hand in, and
absorbing the information this wide range of contacts makes available to him.
What emerges, in fact, is not just the new brutality of British crime,
represented by two young Kray-like pretenders (and matched in the
explicitness of the writing), but a pointilliste picture of a society in flux, full of
authentic detail, and where hoodlums line up with the well-heeled to compete
for the riches to come. There are walk-on parts, as I gather is the norm for
Lawton, for Tom Driberg, Eisenhower and Hugh Gaitskell. And amongst the
well-heeled are a couple reminiscent of 50s gossip column stars Lord and
Lady Docker, not to mention a Maurice Micklewhite, a name of course once
abandoned by the young Michael Caine.
It's a sprightly, captivating mix, stylishly written, that makes me wonder why
I never followed up on those rave reviews for Old Flames (1996) or Riptide
(2001). I'm off to check out the back catalogue. This guy is seriously good.
Blue Rondo by
John Lawton
