A Double Deception

Arriving in London in search of her uncle, Andrew Korwin, who disappeared when the Nazis took over, Stephanie Ayres soon has MI6 agent Campbell Parker convinced that Korwin might still be alive.

Tricks and treachery abound in Egleton's ( Last Act ) latest spy thriller, and if perceptive readers cotton to the chief deception a mite early, they won't mind--Egleton plays scrupulously fair and his plot just barrels along. As the story opens, in September 1939, aristocratic Andrew Korwin has arranged for his younger sister and brother to leave their Warsaw home before the Nazis march in. The brother is killed, sister Christina gets away and we last see Andrew trying to escape from a burning hospital. In 1967 Christina's American daughter, Stefanie, appears in London in search of her uncle. She enlists the aid of Campbell Parker of the Foreign Office, and clues point to Polish emigre Arthur Kershaw, successful manufacturer of a new laser-equipped gun. Other players include a seedy PI, a German con man, a newly released war criminal and even Simon Wiesenthal. People disappear and/or turn up dead, Stefanie and Campbell are in grave danger and their burgeoning affair is threatened by mutual distrust. (Why does Stefanie go to Vienna for a weekend, and why is she under official surveillance?) Not quite on the Eric Ambler level, this complicated tale will nevertheless consume WW II intrigue buffs.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Heroism and betrayal in wartime Warsaw haunt late 60's London- -in the latest thriller from Egleton, who previously paired England and Poland in Last Act (1991). The hitherto largely tidy life and career of British intelligence officer Campbell Parker begins to grow disorganized with the arrival in his office of beautiful, Polish-American businesswoman Stephanie Ayres. Ms. Ayres has taken advantage of a London assignment in order to search for her late mother's brother Andrew Korwin--the last survivor of an aristocratic Warsaw family who went missing in the chaos of wartime Poland after heroic resistance work. Now, the private investigator she hired to help with the search has gone missing, as has the mysterious German who tipped her to the news of her uncle's existence. In fact, all leads on Uncle Andrew have gone to ground or run up against official roadblocks. Parker is able to use his Foreign Office connections to pick up the trail and finds that Andrew Korwin is now Arthur Kershaw, prosperous co-owner of a high-tech firm on the fringe of the arms trade. Parker's good deed gets him nothing but trouble. Her Majesty's intelligence service would have been much happier if Mr. Kershaw had been left alone; Miss Ayres, with whom Parker has become smitten, is clearly not just a businesswoman; a gang of assassins has just missed executing Kershaw's business partner in Spain, where he was working a shady arms deal; a tough customer is on his way to the UK from East Germany to settle some WW II debts incurred by Uncle Andrew\Arthur; and Parker is very much in the way. Mostly satisfying. The clever characters, scenes of bureaucratic warfare, and the romantic setup are more attractive and of greater interest than the rather frantic plot. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.