Always a Spy: A Novel of Suspense

Footman's Englishmen come across as American B-movie actors, and his confusingly plotted, poorly crafted novel has as much suspense as worn knicker elastic. Set in 1980 (though we are told only that President Tito has just died), it matches Harry Ryder, an urbane CIA Rambo, with Melissa Meirion, a British Intelligence courier who is a cross between Princess Di and Rambolina. Their mission is to find one of Harry's old World War II buddies, one Ethan Pickering, who has emerged in Yugoslavia as Peter Trubari and then disappeared. The plot, such as it is, involves preventing the Russians from blowing up the new Yugoslavian president and blaming the CIA, so that Yugoslavia will fall to the Russians. But if Harry is 52 in 1980, he was 14 in 1942; how, then, could he have fought in the Philippines against the Japanese? This and many other questions are thankfully left unanswered. (October