Enemy Territory

Terman's fourth high-tech suspense novel ( Shell Game ) is a roller-coaster ride that begins in a North Vietnamese prison camp in 1969 and ends sometime in the near future in the Caribbean Sea. The protagonists are Bracken, ex-Air Force captain broken for collaborating with the enemy, and Lu, Eurasian KGB agent, once Bracken's torturer, now caught himself in the sinister machinations of his superior officer. They are brought together by a plot to sabotage both SDI and the U.S. space program--a plot whose implementation depends on the schooner that has become Bracken's final refuge. Although Terman's characters are motivated more by the plot's immediate demands than by coherent structures of values and emotions, the action scenes are first-rate. The narrative is most effective in the scenes at sea, which vividly detail the routines and crises of small-ship sailing in dangerous waters. (Nov.)