cover image There Are No Spies

There Are No Spies

Bill Granger. Warner Books, $16.45 (384pp) ISBN 978-0-446-51283-1

Granger's November Man series has been consistently entertaining andinteresting, far surpassing much of the work done in the espionage genre. This addition to the list maintains that consistency. The story begins when Hanley, former boss of the now-retired Deverauxcode name Novemberis carted off to a mental hospital on the orders of his superiors. This triggers a sequence of deadly events that brings November back into action, pitting him against a deadly female Soviet operative and ultimately leading him to a Soviet sleeper agent high within the American security community. Cross-cutting between November's return to the U.S. from Europe and Hanley's desperate attempts to keep his sanity, the book builds almost perfectly to an exciting finish. Despite telegraphing the identity of the ""mole,'' Granger is mostly on the mark and is approaching the class of le Carre, although he lacks some of that writer's subtlety and psychological insight. 50,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; author tour. (November 11)