cover image See Charlie Run

See Charlie Run

Brian Freemantle. Bantam Books, $15.95 (278pp) ISBN 978-0-553-05213-8

Freemantle (The Blind Run has merged the good humor of a Lawrence Block thriller, the seriousness of a le Carre spy novel and the slam-bang adventure of a popular espionage caper in this newest work about British secret agent Charlie Muffin. Muffin has his detractors in London HQhe dresses sloppily and his loose procedures offend the prigs with bureaucratic powerbut his director, knowing a good man, gives him an assignment anyway: to go to Tokyo and share with the Americans in the reception of KGB defectors Yuri and Irene Kozlov. The CIA men are unhappy that the Soviets have managed to divide the defection between two countries and hope to swipe both husband and wife for themselves. Charlie wouldn't mind grabbing both agents either. And the Kozlovs, under the suspicious eye of their station chief, have certain plans neither ally suspects. When the moves commence, the operation becomes intensely interesting, and at each moment in this thriller the future is exciting and unpredictable. (August)