cover image The Andropov Deception

The Andropov Deception

Brian Crozier. Beaufort Books, $15.95 (243pp) ISBN 978-0-8253-0352-4

This frustrating thriller begins with a list of its 50-plus characters (and their aliases), a useful device, since almost all of them are confusingly similar. As super-secret NATO agency S-9 plans to expose or kill a Soviet tool in the West German Bundestag, the KGB plots to eliminate Briton Bruce Lock, head of S-9. The German has been blackmailed (rape, incest and pedophilia) and bought (a Swiss bank account), but when an American journalist exposes him he manages to talk his way out of trouble, helped by the weak-kneed liberal media. So Lock must, gleefully, go into his killer mode. His life is threatened and his secretary-girlfriend is kidnapped but he thwarts the Reds and, gorily, turns the tables on them. After much tradecraft jargon, the basic silliness of the book surfaces as we learn that all the characters get some kind of sexual satisfaction while torturing or killing those on the other side. The writing is crude and cartoonish and the late Mr. Andropov has almost nothing to do with anything. (April 4)