Pinpoint

Terrorist and counter-terrorist mayhem in 1961 Paris beat at the brutal heart of this relentlessly paced thriller from pseudonymous British author Brown (Ringmain; The Double Tenth). Dissatisfied with de Gaulle's handling of the Algerian crisis and opposed to any form of Algerian independence, French officers organized into the Secret Army Organization (OAS) and plotted against the general's government. When Phillipe de Guy-Montbron and his adopted brother, Paul Vernet, assassinate the French Minister of Special Affairs, a bewildering array of French national security agencies-from upper-class spies to hired thugs-goes after the pair. As Montbron uses the killing to gain access to the inner circle of the OAS, two separate armies of government agents spy on him, and on each other, until their actions take on a vicious life of their own. The result makes for a hard-boiled thriller that begins with overtones of The Day of the Jackal and ends with echoes of The Night of the Generals. In between, the novel stakes out its own territory, chronicling a savage battle between rival agencies that do more damage to each other than to the enemy as they compete to find and kill Montbron. Little is what it seems here, except the clarity of Brown's prose, which feeds readers esoteric background lore while speeding toward its explosive climax. This is the kind of novel that Forsyth used to write: swift, informative and sardonic, with scenes of violence that, while never overindulged, will make readers wince. (Nov.)