Lewis Hancock has narrated 18 audiobooks on Listento.it by 4 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 13 ratings. The most-rated is Riptide.
Riptide
Summary
Spring 1941: After 10 years spying for the Americans, Wolfgang Stahl disappears during a Berlin air raid. The Germans think he's dead. The British know he's not. But where is he? MI6 convince US Intelligence that Stahl will head for London, and so Captain Cal Cormack, a shy American 'aristocrat', is teamed with Chief Inspector Stilton, fat, 50, and convivial, and between them they scour London. But then things start to go terribly wrong and, ditched by MI6 and disowned by his embassy, Cal is introduced to his one last hope - Sergeant Troy of Scotland Yard.
©2016 John Lawton (P)2016 Oakhill Publishing
The Blood Whisperer
Summary
The uncanny abilities of London crime-scene specialist Kelly Jacks to coax evidence from the most unpromising of crime scenes once earned her the nickname of The Blood Whisperer. Then, six years ago, Kelly woke next to the butchered body of a man, the knife in her hands and no memory of what happened. Now released after serving her sentence for involuntary manslaughter, she gets a job at a crime-scene cleaning firm. But when she asks questions about a suicide somebody doesn’t want answered, she finds herself fleeing from the police, Russian thugs and a local gangster. Now street smart and wary, can she use everything she’s learned inside to evade capture, stay alive and clear her name?
©2015 Zoë Sharp (P)2015 Oakhill Publishing
Flesh Wounds
Summary
Praised for their riveting, ingenious plot twists, John Lawton's series of espionage thrillers featuring Chief Inspector Frederick Troy of Scotland Yard have an uncanny ability to place readers in the thick of history. Now an old flame has returned to Troy's life: Kitty Stilton, wife of an American presidential hopeful. Private eye Joey Rork has been hired to make sure Kitty's amorous liaisons with a rat pack crooner don't ruin her husband's political career. But he also wants to know why Kitty has been spotted with Danny Ryan, whose twin brothers, in addition to owning one of London's hottest jazz clubs, are said to have inherited the crime empire of fallen mobster Alf Marx. Before Rork can find out, he meets a gruesome end. And he isn't the only one: bodies have started turning up around London, dismembered in the same bizarre and horrifying way. Is it possible that the blood trail leads back to Troy's own police force and into Troy's own forgotten past? This compulsively listenable thriller finds one of our most able storytellers at the height of his game.
©2018 John Lawton (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Black Out
Summary
London, 1944. While the Luftwaffe makes its final assault on the already battered British capital, Londoners rush through the streets, seeking underground shelter in the midst of the city's blackout. When the panic subsides, other things begin to surface along with London's war-worn citizens. A severed arm is discovered by a group of children playing at an East End bomb site, and when Scotland Yard's Detective Sergeant Frederick Troy arrives at the scene, it becomes apparent that the dismembered body is not the work of a V-1 rocket. After Troy manages to link the severed arm to the disappearance of a refugee scientist from Nazi Germany, America's newest intelligence agency, the OSS, decides to get involved. The son of a titled Russian émigré, Troy is forced to leave the London he knows and enter a corrupt world of bloody consequences, stateless refugees, and mysterious women as he unearths a chain of secrets leading straight to the Allied high command.
©2017 John Lawton (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Unfortunate Englishman
Summary
Having shot someone in what he believed was self-defense in the chaos of 1963 Berlin, Wilderness finds himself locked up with little chance of escape. But an official pardon through his father-in-law, Burne-Jones, a senior agent at MI6, means he is free to go - although forever in Burne-Jones' service. His newest operation will take him back to Berlin, which is now the dividing line between the West and the Soviets. A backstory of innocence and intrigue unravels, one in which Wilderness is in and out of Berlin and Vienna like a jack-in-the-box. When the Russians started building the Berlin Wall in 1961, two unfortunate Englishmen were trapped on opposite sides. Geoffrey Masefield in the Lubyanka and Bernard Alleyn (alias KGB captain Leonid Liubimov) in Wormwood Scrubs. In 1965 there is a new plan. To exchange the prisoners, a swap upon Berlin's bridge of spies. But, as ever, Joe has something on the side, just to make it interesting, just to make it profitable. The Unfortunate Englishman is a thrilling tale of Khrushchev, Kennedy, a spy exchange...and 10,000 bottles of fine Bordeaux. What can possibly go wrong?
©2016 John Lawton. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
Dancing on the Grave
Summary
There's a killer on the loose in the Lake District, and the calm of an English summer is shattered. For newly qualified crime-scene investigator Grace McColl, it's both the start of a nightmare and the chance to prove herself after a mistake that cost a life. For detective constable Nick Weston, recently transferred from London, it's an opportunity to recover his nerve after a disastrous undercover operation that left him for dead. And for a lonely, loveless teenage girl, Edith, it's the start of a twisted fantasy - one she never dreamed might come true.
©2018 Zoë Sharp (P)2019 Oakhill Publishing
Friends and Traitors
Summary
The latest novel in a series regularly singled out for its exceptional quality features Inspector Troy of Scotland Yard in a tale of Cold War spy dealings centered around double agent Guy Burgess - a story of betrayal, espionage, and the dangers of love. London, 1958. Chief Superintendent Frederick Troy of Scotland Yard, newly promoted after good service during Nikita Khrushchev's visit to Britain, is not looking forward to a European trip with his older brother, Rod. Rod has decided to take his entire family on the "grand tour" for his 51st birthday: a whirlwind of restaurants, galleries, and concert halls from Paris to Florence to Vienna to Amsterdam. But Frederick Troy only gets as far as Vienna. It is there that he crosses paths with an old acquaintance, a man who always seems to be followed by trouble: British spy turned Soviet agent Guy Burgess. Suffice it to say that Troy is more than surprised when Burgess, who has escaped from the bosom of Moscow for a quick visit to Vienna, tells him something extraordinary: "I want to come home." Troy knows this news will cause a ruckus in London - but even Troy doesn't expect an MI5 man to be gunned down as a result, and Troy himself suspected of doing the deed. As he fights to prove his innocence, Troy is haunted by more than just Burgess' past liaisons - there is a scandal that goes up to the highest ranks of Westminster, affecting spooks and politicians alike. And the stakes become all the higher for Troy when he reencounters a woman he first met in the Ritz hotel during a blackout - falling in love is a handicap when playing the game of spies.
©2017 John Lawton (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Then We Take Berlin
Summary
Joe Wilderness is a World War II orphan, a condition that he thinks excuses him from common morality. Cat burglar, card sharp, and Cockney wide boy, the last thing he wants is to get drafted. But, in 1946, he finds himself in the Royal Air Force, facing a stretch in military prison...when along comes Lt Colonel Burne-Jones to tell him MI6 has better use for his talents. Posted to occupied Berlin, interrogating ex-Nazis, and burgling the odd apartment for MI6, Wilderness finds himself with time on his hands and the devil making work. He falls in with Frank, a US Army captain, with Eddie, a British artilleryman, and with Yuri, a major in the NKVD, and, together, they lift the black market scam to a new level. Coffee never tasted so sweet. And he falls for Nell Breakheart, a German girl who has witnessed the worst that Germany could do and is driven by all the scruples that Wilderness lacks. Fifteen years later, June 1963. Wilderness is free-lance and down on his luck. A gumshoe scraping by on divorce cases. Frank is a big shot on Madison Avenue, cooking up one last Berlin scam...for which he needs Wilderness once more. Only now they're not smuggling coffee, they're smuggling people. And Nell? Nell is on the staff of West Berlin's mayor Willy Brandt, planning for the state visit of the most powerful man in the world: "Ich bin ein Berliner!" Then We Take Berlin is a gripping, meticulously researched and richly detailed historical thriller - a moving story of espionage and war, and people caught up in the most tumultuous events of the 21st century.
©2013 John Lawton. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
The Woman in the Water
Summary
Bath, 1761. Lizzie Yeo has had a hard life but fortunately secures a position as wet nurse for the young son of vicar Jonathan Harding. When the boy starts school, Harding finds her a job with local apothecary Mr. Leslie, delivering the curing waters of Bath to invalids. But when a body shows up in the river and her friend Nancy disappears, Lizzie is determined to find answers. However, she is being watched, and after she is attacked in the street and then caught in a deadly house fire, it’s clear that someone wants her gone. But who? And is it all connected to The Woman in the Water?
©2018 Will & Sheila Barton (P)2018 Oakhill Publishing
Old Flames
Summary
In 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 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. Troy embarks on an investigation that takes him to the rotten heart of MI6, to the distant days of his childhood, and into the dangerous arms of an old flame. Brilliantly evoking the intrigue of the Cold War and 1950s London, Old Flames is a thrilling adventure of intrigue and suspense.
©1996 John Lawton (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Black Out
Summary
As the Luftwaffe make their last desperate assault on the city, Londoners take to the shelters once again and eagerly await the signal for D-Day. In the East End, children lead police to a charred, dismembered corpse buried in a bombsite. The victim is German, and it soon becomes clear that this is no ordinary murder. For Russian emigré Detective-Sergeant Troy, it is the start of a manhunt which will lead him into a world of military intelligence and corruption in high places - a manhunt in which Troy is both the hunter and the hunted.
©2015 John Lawton (P)2015 Oakhill Publishing
Bluffing Mr. Churchill
Summary
It is 1941. Wolfgang Stahl, an American spy operating undercover as an SS officer, has just fled Germany with Hitler's henchmen on his trail. He is carrying valuable cargo - the blueprint of the Führer's secret plan to invade Russia. Stahl's man in the American embassy, the shy and sheltered Calvin M. Cormack, is teamed with a boisterous MI5 officer, Walter Stilton, to find the spy and bring him to safety. Their investigation takes them across war-torn London, from the shelled-out blocks to the ubiquitous pubs to the underground counterfeiting shops; and in Cormack's case, into the arms of Kitty, his partner's rambunctious daughter. As Cormack and Stilton close in on Stahl, bodies begin turning up - and the duo realize they may not be the only ones in pursuit of the spy. Someone, it seems, wants the German dead. When his partner is suddenly murdered in the line of duty, Cormack must turn to the ingenious devices of his lover Kitty's old flame - Sergeant Troy of Scotland Yard. Together, they investigate the trail of murders and are forced to ask themselves a horrifying question - are Cormack and his spy being played by one of their own in the American embassy? Brilliantly re-creating London in the time of ration tickets and clothing coupons, Bluffing Mr. Churchill is a blistering book peopled by magnetic characters.
©2018 John Lawton (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Hammer to Fall
Summary
It’s London, the Swinging '60s, and by all rights, MI6 spy Joe Wilderness should be having as good a time as James Bond. But alas, his postings are more grim than glamorous. Luckily, Wilderness has a knack for doing well for himself even in the most unpromising postings - though this has gotten him into hot water in the past. A coffee-smuggling gig in divided Berlin was a steady money-maker, but things went pear-shaped when he had to smuggle a spy back to the KGB instead. In the wake of what became an embarrassing disaster for MI6, Wilderness is reprimanded with a posting to remote Northern Finland, under the guise of a cultural exchange program to promote Britain abroad. Bored by his work, with nothing to spy on, Wilderness finds another way to make money - this time by smuggling vodka across the rather porous border into the USSR. He strikes a deal with his old KGB pal Kostya, who explains to him there is - no joke - a vodka shortage in the Soviet Union, following a grain famine caused by Khrushchev’s new agricultural policies. But there is something fishy about why Kostya has suddenly turned up in Finland, and MI6 intelligence from London points to a connection to the mining of cobalt in the region - a critical component in the casing of the atomic bomb. Wilderness' posting is getting more interesting by the minute, but more dangerous too. Moving from the no-man’s-land of Cold War Finland to the wild days of the Prague Spring, and populated by old friends (including Inspector Troy) and old enemies alike, Hammer to Fall is a gripping tale of deception and skulduggery, of art and politics - a gripping story of the always riveting life of the British spy.
©2020 John Lawton (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
Sweet Sunday
Summary
Turner Raines is Mr Heartbreak. Everybody leaves him. They walk out, they run away...they die. When his oldest friend, Mel Kissing, dies with an ice pick through his skull, Raines picks up the thread and sets out to ask 'who?' and 'why?' But this is America in 1969, and one death is just a drop in the ocean. The Vietnam War is ripping the country to pieces, the Woodstock Festival is in full swing and Norman Mailer is standing as candidate for mayor of New York. Against this backdrop, Raines’ questions take him back to the childhood home he left in Texas, back to the battered remains of his youth.
©2015 John Lawton (P)2015 Oakhill Publishing
A Lily of the Field
Summary
Meret Voytek, pupil of professor Viktor Rosen, a Jew in exile from Germany, watches as Vienna comes under Nazi rule and the repercussions for the Jews. Across Europe, Dr Karel Szabo, a Hungarian physicist, has been interned on the Isle of Man. Rescued by the Americans, they recruit him in building an atomic bomb. Moving from Vienna and Auschwitz to the deserts of New Mexico to London, fate carries the enemy alien, Szabo and gentile Voytek, across the battlefields of the destructive war.
©2011 John Lawton (P)2011 Oakhill Publishing
Second Violin
Summary
The sixth installment in the Inspector Troy series, Lawton's novel opens in 1938 with Europe on the brink of war. In London, 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" that also includes Frederick's brother, Rod, who learns upon receiving an internment letter that despite having grown up in England he is Austrian-born. 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. Amidst great war, murder is what matters. Moving from the Nazi-infested alleys of prewar Vienna to the bombed-out streets of 1940 London, and featuring an extraordinary cast of characters, Lawton's latest brings to life war-torn London. In this uncommon thriller, John Lawton delivers a suspenseful and intelligent novel, as good a spy story as it is a historical narrative.
©2018 John Lawton (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Unfortunate Englishman
Summary
Having shot someone in the chaos of 1963 Berlin, Joe Wilderness finds himself locked up, with little chance of escape. But an official pardon through his father-in-law, Burne-Jones, a senior agent at MI6, means he is free to go. His newest operation will take him back to Berlin, now the dividing line between the West and the Soviets. When the Russians started building the Berlin Wall in 1961, two 'Unfortunate Englishmen' were trapped on opposite sides. In 1965 there is a plan to exchange the prisoners on Berlin’s bridge of spies. But, as ever, Joe has something on the side, just to make it profitable. A thrilling tale of Khrushchev, Kennedy, a spy exchange...and 10,000 bottles of fine Bordeaux.
©2016 John Lawton (P)2016 Oakhill Publishing
A Lily of the Field
Summary
Spanning the tumultuous years of 1934 to 1948, John Lawton's A Lily of the Field is a brilliant historical thriller from a master of the form. The book follows two characters - Meret Voytek, a talented young cellist living in Vienna at the novel's start, and Dr. Karel Szabo, a Hungarian physicist interned in a camp on the Isle of Man. In his seventh Inspector Troy novel, Lawton moves seamlessly from Vienna and Auschwitz to the deserts of New Mexico and the rubble-strewn streets of postwar London, following the fascinating parallels of the physicist Szabo and musician Voytek as fate takes each far from home and across the untraditional battlefields of a destructive war to an unexpected intersection at the novel's close. The result, A Lily of the Field, is Lawton's best book yet, a historically accurate and remarkably written novel that explores the diaspora of two Europeans from the rise of Hitler to the postatomic age.
©2018 John Lawton (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.