The Unfortunate Englishman

Starred review from January 25, 2016
At the start of Lawton’s outstanding second Joe Wilderness novel (after 2014’s Then We Take Berlin), the former MI6 agent accidentally shoots and kills a nuclear physicist he’s trying to smuggle out of East Berlin in 1963. When Alexander Burne-Jones, Joe’s old boss, springs Joe from a West Berlin jail, Joe agrees to go back to work for MI6. Meanwhile, the British spy agency recruits an unassuming Englishman, metallurgist Geoffrey Masefield, and sends him into the field to find where the Russians are hiding their nuclear missiles. Flashbacks bring to life postwar Berlin, where Joe engaged in the “smuggling of coffee, sugar, penicillin, morphine, and anything else that could be nicked.” Real historical events—the building of the Berlin wall, J.F.K.’s visit there—lend verisimilitude to Joe’s attempt at one last big scam. Intricate plotting, colorful characters, and a brilliant prose style put Lawton in the front rank of historical thriller writers. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Associates (U.K.).