An Inside Spy Job
LEKACHMAN, ROBERT
An Inside Spy Job The Double Man By William S. Cohen and Gary Hart Morrow. 348 pp. $16.95. Reviewed by Robert Lekachman Will Colonel Cyril Metrinko, head of the KGB's counterintelligence...
...In his bid for the Presidency Tom flits from country to country— now Italy, soon England, then onto the Concorde and home again...
...Their hero, Connecticut's senior Senator Tom Chandler, is divorced, ambitious, served by a devoted staff, and a bit of a loner...
...All in all, not bad for a first try...
...So are violence and sex...
...For me, the best portions of the novel comment on the political sociology of the U.S...
...Reviewed by Robert Lekachman Will Colonel Cyril Metrinko, head of the KGB's counterintelligence directorate, succeed in destabilizing relations between the superpowers by assassinating selected targets—among them the family of the American Secretary of State—and spreading enough paranoia in the White House to precipitate World War III...
...That body's complex pecking order, the intense competition of members for attention, and the difficulty of friendship among 100 operators, each in business for him or herself, come to more vivid life than the imagined details of espionage...
...Unfortunately, the plot mechanics creak and Tom himself functions far more plausibly as a senator than as an apprentice intelligence agent...
...For no persuasive reason, Tom is convinced that John F. Kennedy's assassination is connected somehow to the wave of terror he is charged with explaining...
...Our authors have mixed a number of these elements with moderate success...
...Will he slaughter his more rational opponents within the KGB...
...Elaine perishes in a mysterious plane crash...
...Is the head of the CIA protecting a deadly secret, his own role as leader of an assassination unit, ZRIFFLE, that is almost the mirror image of Metrinko's operation...
...But I have read many worse items than this one and shall no doubt encounter still more in the future, unless I join Thrillers Anonymous and kick the habit...
...I shall hint at answers to none of these questions...
...Appointed chairman of a special committee to investigate terrorism, he comes to rely romantically and professionally upon Elaine Dunham...
...Senate...
...An Inside Spy Job The Double Man By William S. Cohen and Gary Hart Morrow...
...Truth to tell, he is a bit of a bungler...
...On the whole, they are physically attractive...
...Let us instead consider how well our politician authors—Republican Senator William S. Cohen of Maine and Democratic Senator Hart of Colorado—have fared in Le Carreland...
...Treachery, complexloyal-ties, and double if not treble dealing are indispensable...
...Could a genuine United States Senator be a double agent...
...He is beaten up, favored with death threats, and exposed as the beneficiary of campaign funds from the mob...
...Much of their time is necessarily devoted to countering the maneuvers of enemies in their own organization...
...Often suspected themselves of working for the Soviets, they are invariably loyal to the United States or England...
...It does no harm to make the preservation of the entire human race depend upon the hero's success in thwarting the plots of the opposition...
...As a bonus, Cohen and Hart offer a mildly entertaining tour of senatorial life—the special elevators, the hideaway offices, the food in the Senate restaurant, and the facilities in the Senate gym...
...Heroes are often cynical...
...The violence stops short of outright sadism and the bedroom scenes are almost decorous...
...The major exception on this score is Le Carre's George Smiley, a dumpy specimen routinely cuckolded by his wife...
...Tom's political career is wrecked, his life is endangered, and his future is highly uncertain...
...The door is left open for a sequel...
...The ingredients of best-selling spy thrillers are familiar...
...Theyarecourageous, stoical under torture, and as adept at trailing suspects as they are at escaping surveillance...
...The prose is decent, if no more than that...
...On whose side is Elaine Dunham, the bright, stunning staffer who works with Senator Tom Chandler, a Presidential possibility reminiscent of Gary Hart himself...
Vol. 68 • March 1985 • No. 4
