JOHN LAWTON FIRST EDITIONS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (1995). First edition. “Wonderfully captures the atmosphere of wartime London ... an original and entertaining detective story” (Robert Harris). The first of the Frederick Troy novels – “A severed human arm leads to an unholy web of spying, murder, and betrayal in war-torn London ... Newcomer Lawton has an urban documentarist’s eye and ear for his jangled world ... and a nasty sense of how little slips can indeed sink ships” (Kirkus Reviews, 1st April 1995).
Medium 8vo (25cm). [vi], 342,[iv]pp. Original red boards, lettered in silver; a couple of faint and tiny spots, but a very good copy in a very good dust-jacket of an elusive modern rarity.

£250

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London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (1996). First edition.Signed by John Lawton on the title-page. The second of the much-admired Frederick Troy series – Chief Inspector Troy is assigned to bodyguard and spy on Nikita Khrushchev on his visit to England – “A splash of Greene, a twist of Deighton, a small measure of history – Lawton has produced a thrilling cocktail” (The Times). “Uncommonly smart and engrossing ... stylish, sophisticated, suspenseful fiction ... a world-class talent ... a fictional tour de force” (Patrick Anderson in the Washington Post).
Royal 8vo (25cm). [x],416,[vi]pp. Original maroon boards, lettered in gilt; the merest hint of bruising, but a very good copy indeed – bright, clean and sound – in an equally very good dust-jacket.

£100

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London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (1998). First edition. Signed by John Lawton on the title-page. The scarce third novel in the much-admired Frederick Troy series – it is 1963 – a defection, a ministerial resignation, an overdose and a suicide – all echoes of the very real events surrounding Kim Philby, the Profumo Affair and Stephen Ward – an “unputdownable narrative of spying, sexual intrigue, political scandal and murder ... a haunting novel, transcending the bounds of genre fiction” (A. N. Wilson in the Daily Telegraph).
Royal 8vo (25cm). [viii],440pp. Original black boards, lettered in silver; an excellent copy, bright, clean and sound, in an equally fine dust-jacket.

£100

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London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (2001). First edition. Signed by John Lawton on the title-page. London in the Spring of 1941 – German spy, American captain, Cockney policeman, his precocious daughter – and Sergeant Troy of the Yard. “Wonderfully captures the atmosphere of wartime London ... original and entertaining” (Robert Harris). “One of the most entertaining thrillers I have read in years” (Sunday Telegraph).
Medium 8vo (25cm). [x],322,[iv]pp. Original brown boards, lettered in gilt; a very good, bright, clean and sound copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just a touch sunned, but otherwise also very good.

£100

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London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (2002). First edition. Signed by John Lawton on the title-page. A stand-alone novel set in the American summer of 1969 – the USA about to land a man on the moon, the Vietnam War ripping families apart, Norman Mailer running for Mayor of New York – failed civil rights worker, failed lawyer, and failed journalist Turner Raines tracks down a runaway. “I entreat you, dear reader, to search out John Lawton and cherish him to your bosom, for he is truly an original” (Michael Painter, Irish Times).
Medium 8vo (25cm). [viii],(328)pp. Original black boards, lettered in silver; just a hint of tanning to text, but otherwise a very good, bright and sound copy in the Peter Wallis dust-jacket – the jacket with a touch of sunning, but otherwise unworn and unflawed.

£75

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London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (2005). First edition. London in 1959 – still scarred by war – corruption in rebuilding – new breeds of Londoner – Kray-like thugs brought up in wartime and now merciless – and Troy’s past come back to haunt him. “A sublimely elegant historical novelist, as addictive as crack” (Daily Telegraph).
Medium 8vo (25cm). [viii],(344)pp. Original black boards, lettered in silver; a hint of bruising at foot, but otherwise a very good, bright, sound and clean copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just a touch sunned, but also very good.

£50

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London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, (2007). First edition. In occupied Vienna in 1938 with Frederick Troy’s journalist brother – by 1939 Troy is promoted to Scotland Yard – and in 1940 is loaned out to the Special Branch to round up enemy aliens, including his Austrian-born brother. Then a rabbi is murdered, and then another.
Medium 8vo (25cm). [x],(420),[ii]pp. Original black boards, lettered in silver; a very good copy indeed – bright, clean, and sound in the dust-jacket – the jacket also very good indeed.

£40

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London : Grove Press UK, (2011). First British edition. Strands of the past collide with a brazen murder on a London Underground platform. The eighth of the Frederick Troy novels. “Lawton has always pushed the boundaries of the series crime novel, edging closer to broad-canvas historical fiction, but this time he has leaped the fence altogether” (Booklist).
Medium 8vo (25cm). [viii],(382),[viii]pp. Original white boards, blocked and lettered in gilt; top edge just slightly tanned, but otherwise a very good copy in the dust-jacket – the jacket just lightly sunned, but very good and unworn.

£40

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New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, (2017). First edition : precedes the 2018 London edition. Signed by John Lawton on the title-page. The eighth of the Inspector Troy series – an encounter with Guy Burgess in Vienna in 1958 and the past begins to unravel into the present.
Medium 8vo (24cm). [viii],(342),[ii]pp. Original black and grey boards, lettered in metallic red; a very good copy indeed in the Carlos Beltran dust-jacket – also very good indeed.

£100

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