Author

Lawrence Dudley

Lawrence Dudley
  • The new, fast-paced, WWII-era spy thriller from the author of New York Station

    Forty modern masterpieces are found concealed on a neutral ship in international waters sixteen months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Their provenance is sketchy and their final destination unknown. The Royal Navy suspects the works are “degenerate art” seized by the Nazis and shipped across the Atlantic to create cash for their covert operations. But how to prove it?

    There’s only one man for the job—Roy Hawkins. The British Secret Intelligence Service has put their half-American star agent in tough spots before and he’s always come out on top. But this time Hawkins is headed to Mexico, where the vibrant art scene and tight-knit German expatriate community obscure the paintings’ ultimate purpose. As he tracks the art from Veracruz to Mexico City, Hawkins struggles to see the Nazis’ endgame. For the first time, he doesn’t speak the language and he doesn’t know the players—but he does know how to fight Fascists. Problem is, in the “get along and go along” culture of wartime profiteering, distinguishing between the true believers and the opportunists is no easy task.

    Can Hawkins untangle the false leads and double crosses before the Nazis realize their sinister plan?

  • In June 1940—eighteen months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor—Anglo American MI6 agent Roy Hawkins is mysteriously rushed from Nazi-occupied Paris to New York. Enraged at being ordered away from what he believes is the real fight against Nazism and Fascism, he wants to get back to Paris as soon as possible, even though he knows it means almost certain death.

    In New York he is shocked and sickened to encounter a now-alien America increasingly dominated by right-wing extremists, including a new radio celebrity, Walter Ventnor. After a tense encounter with his friend and mentor William Stephenson, he agrees to temporarily pursue a Nazi commercial envoy, Hans Ludwig, and try and stop him from stealing American submarine warfare secrets.

    Hawkins follows Ludwig to the elite Saratoga racing meeting, where Ludwig is cultivating top American business leaders. There he meets the scion of an ancient and aristocratic New York family, Daisy van Schenck. After persuading Daisy to throw Ludwig out of the mansion he has rented, Hawkins finds himself increasingly attracted to her, and to the possibility of a different life.

    When Hawkins discovers a Nazi plot to rig the presidential election, he is forced to choose between duty and the woman he loves.