<DIV>John Lawton&#8217;s debut novel&#151;first published by Viking in 1995, and now being reissued by Grove Press&#151;is a stunning, war-time thriller that cements his place among the greatest crime writers of our era. The first of the Inspector Troy novels, <i>Black Out</i> singularly captures the realities of wartime London, weaving them into a riveting drama that encapsulates the uncertainty of Europe at the dawn of the postwar era.<BR><BR>London, 1944. While the Luftwaffe makes its final assault on the already battered British capital, Londoners rush through the streets, seeking underground shelter in the midst of the city&#8217;s black out. When the panic subsides, other things begin to surface along with London&#8217;s war-worn citizens. A severed arm is discovered by a group of children playing at an East End bomb site, and when Scotland Yard&#8217;s Dective Sergeant Frederick Troy arrives at the scene, it becomes apparent that the dismembered body is not the work of a V-1 rocket. After Troy manages to link the severed arm to the disappearance of a refugee scientist form Nazi Germany, America&#8217;s newest intelligence agency, the OSS, decides to get involved. The son of a titled Russian &#233;migr&#233;, Troy is forced to leave the London he knows and enter a corrupt world of bloody consequences, stateless refugees, and mysterious women as he unearths a chain of secrets leading straight to the Allied high command.</DIV>