The Deadfall Trap

Taylor's debut Shadow Tiger won the National Writer's Club award; his second thriller is another bonanza for adventure buffs. Thronged with incident and diverse characters, the story begins in 1971 when plans for an American rapprochement with China are under way. The success of the mission demands a covert operation in Tibet teaming CIA operative Jeffrey Thorne and British agents Elena Maltby, an Anglo-Indian widow, and Brady, an ex-sergeant in the Irish army. Carrying a small nuclear bomb, the three climb to a mountain site to seek ``Deadfall,'' an annihilating weapon invented and hidden by Maltby's father before Chinese soldiers killed him and his wife. These murders precede horrors so numerous that their effect is almost dulled, even when Thorne's partners betray him and leave him for dead. Thorne--who beggars the word ``intrepid''--is rescued through a series of improbable but suspenseful coincidences. When he gets back to America, tension mounts as he heads into a final confrontation with the hitherto secret perpetrators of the Deadfall plot. Despite his tale's excesses, Taylor builds an irresistible thriller. (June)