Joe Wilderness

It's London, the swinging sixties, and by all rights MI6 spy Joe Wilderness should be having as good a time as James Bond. But alas, his postings are more grim than glamorous. Luckily, Wilderness has a knack for doing well for himself even in the most unpromising postings-though this has gotten him into hot water in the past. A coffee-smuggling gig in divided Berlin was a steady money-maker but things went pear-shaped when he had to smuggle a spy back to the KGB instead. In the wake of what became an embarrassing disaster for MI6, Wilderness is reprimanded with a posting to remote northern Finland, under the guise of a cultural exchange program to promote Britain abroad. Bored by his work, with nothing to spy on, Wilderness finds another way to make money-this time by smuggling vodka across the rather porous border into the USSR. He strikes a deal with his old KGB pal Kostya, who explains to him there is-no joke-a vodka shortage in the Soviet Union, following a grain famine caused by Khrushchev's new agricultural policies. But there is something fishy about why Kostya has suddenly turned up in Finland, and MI6 intelligence from London points to a connection to the mining of cobalt in the region-a critical component in the casing of the atomic bomb. Wilderness's posting is getting more interesting by the minute, but more dangerous too. Moving from the no-man's-land of Cold War Finland to the wild days of the Prague Spring, and populated by old friends (including Inspector Troy) and old enemies alike, Hammer to Fall is a gripping tale of deception and skullduggery, of art and politics-a gripping story of the always riveting life of the British spy.

From "quite possibly the best historical novelist we have" (Philadelphia Inquirer), the fourth Joe Wilderness spy thriller, moving from Red Scare–era Washington, DC, to a KGB prison near Moscow's KremlinIn Moscow Exile, John Lawton departs from his usual stomping grounds of England and Germany to jump across the Atlantic to Washington, DC, in the fragile postwar period where the Red Scare is growing noisier every day. Charlotte is a British expatriate who has recently settled in the nation's capital with her second husband, a man who looks intriguingly like Clark Gable, but her enviable dinner parties and soirées aren't the only things she is planning. Meanwhile, Charlie Leigh-Hunt has been posted to Washington as a replacement for Guy Burgess, last seen disappearing around the corner and into the Soviet Union. Charlie is soon shocked to cross paths with Charlotte, an old flame of his, who, thanks to all her gossipy parties, has a packed pocketbook full of secrets she is eager to share.Two decades or so later, in 1969, Joe Wilderness is stuck on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, held captive by the KGB, a chip in a game way above his pay grade-but his old friends Frank and Eddie are going to try to spring him out of the toughest prison in the world. All roads lead back to Berlin, and to the famous Bridge of Spies.Featuring crackling dialogue, brilliantly plotted Cold War intrigue, and the return of beloved characters, including Inspector Troy, Moscow Exile is a gripping thriller populated by larger-than-life personalities in a Cold War plot that feels strangely in tune with our present. "One of the best authors of espionage fiction [in Moscow Exile]…proves that high-level spycraft can be as dangerous as it is farcical." "A must for those who enjoy leisurely paced historical spy novels…intricately plotted." "A strong portrait of Lawton's real-life sense of espionage: calculating, well-armed, self-defined." "A fast romp through the exploits of British intelligence agents who played for Mother Russia…What's next for Joe Wilderness? Countless readers are looking forward to his next adventure." "An espionage series of uncommon depth and breadth…using crackling dialogue and rapier wit to bring a Technicolor sheen to the moral ambiguity of the Cold War."