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Bluffing Mr. Churchill

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

It is 1941. Wolfgang Stahl, an American spy operating undercover as an SS officer, has just fled Germany with Hitler's henchmen on his trail. He is carrying valuable cargo—the blueprint of the Führer's secret plan to invade Russia. Stahl's man in the American embassy, the shy and sheltered Calvin M. Cormack, is teamed with a boisterous MI5 officer, Walter Stilton, to find the spy and bring him to safety. Their investigation takes them across war-torn London, from the shelled-out blocks to the ubiquitous pubs to the underground counterfeiting shops; and in Cormack's case, into the arms of Kitty, his partner's rambunctious daughter. As Cormack and Stilton close in on Stahl, bodies begin turning up—and the duo realize they may not be the only ones in pursuit of the spy. Someone, it seems, wants the German dead. When his partner is suddenly murdered in the line of duty, Cormack must turn to the ingenious devices of his lover Kitty's old flame—Sergeant Troy of Scotland Yard. Together, they investigate the trail of murders and are forced to ask themselves a horrifying question—are Cormack and his spy being played by one of their own in the American embassy?

Brilliantly re-creating London in the time of ration tickets and clothing coupons, Bluffing Mr. Churchill is a blistering page-turner peopled by magnetic characters.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from December 8, 2003
      In this stimulating prequel to Lawton's acclaimed Inspector Troy series (Black Out
      ; Old Flames
      ; etc.), London is in the middle of the blitz and 25-year-old Freddie Troy is a Scotland Yard sergeant, chafing at the limits of his post. As the novel begins, he is relegated to the background, the focus instead on a gawky American named Calvin Cormack, who has come to London to help find and debrief Wolfgang Stahl, a top aide to Hitler's SS chief, Heydrich, and a spy for the Americans who has been forced to flee Germany for England to avoid capture, carrying with him plans for the imminent German invasion of Russia. The seriously spooked Stahl disappears into the vast underground system of bombed-out London, accessible only to Walter Stilton, a wonderfully bluff old copper. Calvin (whose father is a U.S. senator working with Charles Lindbergh and the America First group to keep the U.S. out of the war) is quickly absorbed into the large Stilton family, winning the affections of oldest daughter Kitty, also a police officer. Kitty, as it happens, was previously involved with Freddie Troy (and hasn't given him up entirely); Freddie's ties to the family and Calvin become more complicated when tragedy strikes and Freddie is drawn into the search for Stahl. Lawton meshes comedy and suspense with skill and energy, and seamlessly mixes fictional creations with real characters like H.G. Wells, newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook, Winston Churchill and distant cousin Robert Churchill (a talented gunsmith who plays a key role here), producing a distinctive, vigorous novel of wartime suspense.

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  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

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