Last Rights

Born in England to Russian parents, Edward Bell's Russian heritage ensnares him in a web of compromise, deceit and danger in this thoughtful and well-crafted thriller about post-Cold War realities and Cold War secrets. The secrets are files detailing potentially explosive agreements between Communist Russia and the governments of the West, stolen during the aborted anti-Gorbachev coup. The thief winds up dead in a car in front of Bell's mother's house--and his mother winds up missing. As Bell tracks both mother and files to Russia, he finds that he is the pawn in a game of face-saving intrigue in which the British, the Americans and the Russians are all after the files, and nobody in Bell's life is what he or she seems to be. The plotting is intricate but never confusing, with satisfying surprises leading to an ending that is all too real; and the likable Bell deepens and darkens as he reveals more about himself. A BBC reporter whose stories about the new Russia got him deported as a suspected British agent, Sebastian ( Saviour's Gate ) weaves gloomy meditations on the aftereffects of the Second Russian Revolution into this dark, despairing story about secrecy and deceit that indicts all governments equally. (Feb.)