John Lawton News: A Lily of the Field, Agents of Treachery and Bouchercon

John Lawton’s next Troy novel, A Lily of the Field, is to be published in the US in October of this year, with the UK first edition hardback coming later, in March of 2011.  As soon as I know the imprint for the UK, I will provide a further update.  So, if you like collecting the UK first editions you’ll have to wait just a little longer…

But in the meantime, be aware that Amazon UK has the US edition listed on their site with no sign of the UK edition yet.  The picture here is of the US cover.

Here’s some information on the novel from the US publisher’s (Grove Atlantic) site:

Vienna 1934. Ten-year-old Meret Voytek becomes a pupil of esteemed musician professor Viktor Rosen, a Jew in exile from Germany. Three years later, aware that the Nazis are advancing, Rosen tells his promising pupil that he must leave Vienna for London. When Vienna quietly comes under Nazi rule, Meret witnesses the repercussions for the city’s Jews, but when her orchestra becomes a division of the Hitler Youth, she complies and wears the uniform. Meanwhile, across Europe, Dr. Karel Szabo, a Hungarian physicist, has been interned in a camp on the Isle of Man. Shortly thereafter, Szabo is transported to Canada and rescued by the Americans, who recruit him to join the team in New Mexico building an atomic bomb.

In his ninth book, Lawton moves seamlessly from Vienna and Auschwitz to the deserts of New Mexico to London, illustrating the fascinating parallels of the enemy alien, Szabo and gentile Voytek, as fate carries each across the distinct and untraditional battlefields of the destructive war to an unexpected intersection at the novel’s close. The result, A Lily of the Field, is Lawton’s best book yet, an historically accurate and remarkably written novel that explores the diaspora of two Europeans from the rise of Hitler to the post-atomic age.

If in the UK and you feel you need some Lawton therapy before March 2011, get your mitts on a collection of spy short stories published by Corvus in October; this one is called Agents of Treachery.  It’s edited by Otto Penzler of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York and contributors include, in addition to Lawton: Robert Wilson; Stella Rimington; Lee Child; Joe Finder and many more.

Want to meet the author or get your novels signed?  Book a place at Bouchercon in 2010 to secure the chance to chat.

Comments

[crimeficreader]

Ian, my only criterion is the sooner the better. But I also like my UK first editions...

[Ian]

Despite liking UK first editions think this is one where a US buy is going to come into play; equally, isn't October a much better time to be reading Lawton than March?

[crimeficreader]

Boy, you are quick off the mark, Norm! Yes, it is a new Troy. US publisher seems to have overlooked this in the synopsis...

[Norm]

Thanks for the update, I have two Troys still to read Blue Rondo and a Little White Death. Is this one a Troy?