Second Violin

It is 1938, and Europe is on the brink of war. As London braces for air attacks, Frederick Troy, newly promoted to the prestigious murder squad at Scotland Yard, is put in charge of rounding up a list of German and Italian "enemy aliens". The list also includes his brother Rod, who learns upon receiving an internment letter that he was born in Austria, despite having grown up in England.

Hundreds of men are herded by train to a neglected camp on the Isle of Man. And as the bombs start falling on London, a murdered rabbi is found, then another, and another . . . Amid great war, murder is what matters.

Moving from the Nazi-infested alleys of prewar Vienna to the bombed-out streets of 1940 London, Lawton's thriller is a suspenseful and intelligent novel featuring an extraordinary cast of characters. It is as good a spy story as it is an historical narrative.