Mallory's Gambit

1985, Atlantic Monthly Press, hardcover edition, 287 pages. Thriller novel. In 1944, a failed British Special Operations mission involves a young OSS individual because he can pass for German. The mission is evidently betrayed to the Gestapo and ends in torture and death. 26 years later, Counterintelligence Chief Thomas Pendleton is involved in extracting a defector who claims to have information about a Russian mole in the CIA.

In a familiar but extremely well fleshed- out and grippingly authentic narrative, Balling ( The Fourth Shot , 1982) takes a credibly flawed and down-to-earth American protagonist from the extem porized assassination attempts of a French Underground cell in wartime Paris to the dangers of spy craft in 1970 divided Berlin. Bertrayed to the Ges tapo by true love Marie in 1944, scraw ny, chain-smoking OSS agent Richard Mallory nevertheless survives to join the CIA later. Ultimately called upon to contact a potential defector in East Ber lin who can finger a KGB infiltrator at CIA headquarters, he encounters Ma rie once again and discovers a new be trayer. No real surprises, then, but the sustained, nervous excitement evoked by the author's efficient prose should ensure a good audience. Rex E. Klett, Anson Cty. Lib., Wadesboro,
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.