Second Violin

By John Lawton

Written by 'a sublimely elegant historical novelist as addictive as crack' (Daily Telegraph), the Inspector Troy series is perfect for fans of Le Carré, Philip Kerr and Alan Furst.


1938.

The Germans take Vienna without a shot being fired. Covering Austria for the English press is a young journalist named Rod Troy. Back home his younger brother joins the CID as a detective constable.

Two years later tensions are rising and 'enemy aliens' are rounded up in London for internment. In the midst of the chaos London's most prominent rabbis are being picked off one by one and Troy must race to stop the killer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grove Press UK
• Release date: Mar 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781611859874

Reviews for Second Violin

[john.cooper · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I gave it a try, but made it only to page 110. I picked the book up as "an Inspector Troy thriller," but Inspector Troy made no appearance in the first quarter of the book, nor is this a thriller; in fact, the part that I read was a grim historical novel set in Vienna during the Nazi takeover and the beginning of the Jewish genocide. I'm aware of many of the ways that the Nazis stole the dignity from their victims before dispatching them, and I didn't enjoy reading about it again. And after reading it, I found the idea of this book somehow finally turning into "an Inspector Troy thriller," with the escapist lack of seriousness that the label implies, tasteless.I kept going for 110 pages partly because the book *is* better written than your average murder mystery, and I wanted to know why the reviewer at the Chicago Tribune found Lawton as good as Le Carré. But ultimately, even the writing fell through for me as historical characters were introduced. The portrayal of Churchill was believable enough, but I found Lawton's Freud too sweet-tempered and gregarious for a man suffering from a painful, terminal cancer of the jaw, and Lawton's H.G. Wells was a mere caricature apparently designed to make socialists seem silly.I admire Lawton's ambition, but it seems misplaced.

[annmariegamble · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great personal rather than portentous depiction of the early days of World War II--when you're in the middle of things, how do you know if it's historic, if it'll get better or worse? The book jacket overstates the thriller and spying parts of the story; fans of Foyle's War on TV would enjoy the pace and tone.

[jamespurcell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

More a history than a mystery., this novel is set earlier with, Troy as a Sergeant of the Murder Squad but seconded to Special Branch. There, he discovers that thuggery and racial profiling were not just practiced in Germany. Timely flashbacks and much flitting among character perspectives keep the story lively and interesting. Soupcons of real people liven the broth nicely

[bsquaredinoz · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Second Violin attempts, I think, to be something of an epic; somewhat audaciously depicting many aspects of war time life both in continental Europe and in Britain and delving into all classes and communities. From the Austrian/German Anschluss in 1938 the book jumps through a series of seminal historical events including Kristallnacht, England’s declaration of War, the internment of various classes of ‘alien’, the London Blitz and so on. Somehow inveigling their way into all of these happenings are the Troy family which includes Russian émigré Sir Alex Troy, now a retired newspaper baron, and his two sons Rod, a journalist, and Freddie a police constable. One or other of them is centrally involved in all of these events (and then some) as the book hurtles, at pace, along. At about the three quarter mark there is a cursory police investigation into some curious deaths but potential readers should believe the author when he says the series that this book is part of is not crime fiction.

Surprisingly (perhaps) it wasn’t the lack of a mystery element to the novel that bothered me but rather its epic scope. I think I’d rather have seen a few events or incidents teased out with more depth than have an entire wartime experience condensed into 15 hours of listening. On multiple occasions just as I was becoming interested in some aspect of the story – a Jewish tailor’s flight from Vienna for example or the experiences of the fascinating mixture of characters in an internment camp on the Isle of Mann – I’d be whisked away to some other drama. Individually all of these events could probably power their own novel so I felt a bit cheated to have them all crammed into the one book. I was reminded a little of being back in school when history text books just skimmed the surface and threw up a lot of names and dates. What I wanted then and want still is to get behind all the facts and figures and with Second Violin I found myself tantalisingly close to doing that but never quite getting there.

This doesn’t stop the book from being both entertaining and insightful though. The process of identifying which ‘aliens’ would be locked up for the war’s duration, and how that process worked, was, for example, depicted as the farce we now know it to have been. The parallels with more recent political skirmishes are well-drawn although, I’m certain, would be entirely unseen by any powers-that-be who happened upon the book.

I did not find any of the Troy family particularly engaging as characters, feeling they’re all a little too unrealistic to be the kind of people I could truly grow to love. I admit this is unfair on my part as I am quite smitten by Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody who is at least equally as unrealistic and potentially allegorical as the Troy brothers and I can’t really put my finger on why I didn’t take to the Troys more but there’s not a lot I can do about it. I adored some of the other characters in the novel though, including the aforementioned Austrian tailor and his part-Polish, mostly Cockney boss.

Unfortunately and unusually there was an aspect of the narration of the audio book that was a bit off-putting too. There didn’t seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason to the voices, in particular the accents, that the narrator chose to use. So Sigmund Freud (one of many real life characters to make a cameo appearance in the novel) has a vaguely Viennese accent while the German foot-soldier who helps the tailor escape has a Cockney accent. Most peculiar.

Overall then I liked this book but didn’t love it. Apart from being a bit too shallow for my personal preference I think the epic scope of the story resulted in a lack of narrative focus. You couldn’t possibly suggest that the investigation of the deaths that Troy carries out is the book’s focus as this doesn’t occupy more than a small fraction of the story and doesn’t start until close to the end. So to me Second Violin read more like a series of vignettes of ‘highlights’ of the wartime experience than a closely woven narrative and my preference will always be for the latter.

[adolphogordo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An excellent book.

[krbrancolini · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Second Violin" is one of my favorite Frederick Troy novels, despite the fact that the murders really have nothing to do with the rest of the book. Like the latest book in the series, "A Lily of the Field," the book begins in Austria and Germany, introducing characters who will be important to the rest of the book. Some of these characters also turn up in other books in the series. I actually like not having read the books in chronological order; it's fun to know what happens to the various characters when you meet them in earlier books. "Second Violin" introduces two women who feature in later books, Zette Borg and Kitty Stilton. Both will become his lovers and they represent the type of sexual encounters that he will have throughout the series. Zette may have been Troy's first lover -- he's a little vague about that -- and she sets the bar high for all the rest. She's beautiful and crazy. She's also a physicist who will later play a role in the development of the atomic bomb. Kitty is a Cockney police officer, the daughter of one of Troy's colleagues. She's looking for a husband and Troy has no interest in being her Mr. Right. Kitty features in a later book as well, married to an American presidential hopeful during the 1960s.The atmospheric portrayal of London, especially the horror and the excitement of the Blitz; the quirky and endearing characters; the mix of historical and fictional characters -- all add up to an extremely satisfying thriller. I won't say murder mystery, because that is actually the least-satisfying aspect of "Second Violin," but I'm not complaining.

[maneekuhi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

(Completed 1/20 - #4, rating 4.0) This is the 6th book of this 7 book series, the 4th I have read. I love this series. It is a grand mix of London from the 30's through the early 60's, politics, at war, history, big personalities, sex, and a bit of crime fiction. For the most part, Second Violin stays within the 1939-40 timeframe and does not bounce around earlier nor later years as have other Troy novels (This is the only series I've read where the reader can pretty much pick up any book and read the series in any order - there is no order!) Anyway, SV starts very slowly, the first 100 pages deal with Nazis in Vienna and impacts on the local Jews. I barely stayed with the book, but for me it got rolling once the story shifted to London. After another 100 pages or so I had to admit to myself that the first 100 pages were in fact necessary (I've read enough about Nazis though, thank you.) There is a murder mystery of sorts in the background but it is dwarfed by what happens to the Troy family and others - including the "imprisonment" of the oldest son of this 'toff' family because he was born in Danzig(?) and never became a naturalized citizen - so Rod is sent off on a long train ride along with other aliens to a makeshift camp. Meanwhile Freddie is trying to figure out why so many Rabbis from the Stepney area are dying, and Dad is having meetings with Churchill and phone conversations with Freud. Not your typical crime fiction series.....

[thejazzmonger · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved it! Lawton is an extremely effective writer and I loved the combination of a good mystery story interwoven with the complex political and social forces raging at the outset of World War II. It reminded me of how much I enjoyed Herman Wouk's "Winds of War." Lawton creates very vivid characters, people who are more than just plot devices. He is able to make one care about what happens to them, both the nice and the not-so-nice.I got this book because of a recommendation from LibraryThing and my pleasure in reading it just reinforces what a great tool LT is. I am going to work my way through Lawton's Inspector Troy series with great relish.

[psghook · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

best one,yet a great read

[dougwood57 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Second Violin is the sixth book in John Lawton’s Inspector Troy series. The events in this book occur chronologically earlier than the previous books in the series. (For that reason, I read this book first, which may or may not be the best way to enjoy this book). The story begins in Austria with Hitler’s Anschluss in 1938 and ends with the Battle of Britain in the autumn of 1940.Frederick Troy is a sergeant in Scotland Yard’s elite murder squad and Second Violin tells the reader how got there. Troy is the son of newspaper lord and Russian émigré Alexei Troy. He could have done anything (or nothing at all, for that matter), but he chose to become a beat cop. The denizens of Stepney Green, his patrol beat, see him as a toff out slumming. Frederick Troy’s brother, Roderick, is a foreign correspondent for their father’s paper. He witnesses the horrible events of Kristallnacht in Austria before being put on a plane and sent packing by the Nazis. While brother Frederick is assigned police duty rounding up aliens for internment, Rod he finds himself more directly involved in the camps than anyone imagined possible. Freddie manages to take on a murder investigation when three rabbis turn up dead. In perhaps the book’s strongest element, Lawton examines the brutal treatment of Jews in Austria through one Josef Hummel, tailor, and the subsequent rounding up and internment of aliens, including not only Hummel, but also long-time London residents who turn out to have been born in a foreign country. While I recommend reading this book and intend to read other books in the series, I cannot give Second Violin five full stars. Lawton jams too many disparate story lines and a few stand alone bits (like Sigmund Freud) that leave the reader feeling a bit disjointed. (I should also add that it may be that some of the things that seem like loose ends, but may not be so untidy if one has read the previous books in the series). I also found that reading this book made a nice companion for the most excellent Foyle’s War TV series.