Black Out

The Blitz, London 1944. 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.

John Lawton worked for Channel 4 for many years, and, among many others, produced Harold Pinter's 'O Superman', the least-watched most-argued-over programme of the 90s. He has written seven novels in his Troy series, two Joe Wilderness novels, the standalone Sweet Sunday, a couple of short stories and the occasional essay. He writes very slowly and almost entirely on the hoof in the USA or Italy, but professes to be a resident of a tiny village in the Derbyshire Peak District. He admires the work of Barbara Gowdy, TC Boyle, Oliver Bleeck, Franz Schubert and Clara Schumann - and is passionate about the playing of Maria Joao Pires. He has no known hobbies, belongs to no organisations and hates being photographed.