The Memory Church: A Novel

Long-time British agent James Martin finds himself out in the cold in the East when the Berlin Wall comes down, and he is soon a hunted man

Writing at the borders of the genre, former BBC correspondent Sebastian (whose Saviour's Gate was a prescient view of the collapse of the U.S.S.R.) pens his powerful new espionage thriller in elliptical, impressionistic prose that recalls The Third Man. Just before the destruction of the Wall in a vividly depicted, dreary East Berlin, James Martin, British Intelligence mole in the East German Stasi (secret police), witnesses a KGB raid on Stasi headquarters; troops carry away the agency's secret files. As Martin rushes to get away to the safety of England, a Stasi agent offers to name a mole in the SIS, but the man is murdered before identifying the traitor. Martin narrowly evades various plots against his life as he tries to track down the mole and, at the same time, reunite with his ex-lover Cassie McNeil, a beautiful CIA agent. The story is characterized by movement: locations range from Berlin to London to Washington to Russia; the time period begins with the destruction of the Berlin Wall, moves back 20 years, then forward again to the present; and the characters move emotionally through various degrees of loyalty and trust. Despite all the motion (and a fairly high body count), much is left unresolved at the conclusion, a bittersweet ending that rings true and that underscores Sebastian's psychological acumen in reflecting human behavior under stress.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In his fourth spy novel, Sebastian ( Spy Shadow , LJ 4/15/91) effectively portrays the grim and gritty half-tones of both the life and landscape of East Berlin. Germany is unifying, but pseudo-traitor James Martin (planted to uncover a British double agent) is uncertain what his next move should be in the absence of any word from his superiors. When people around him begin to reveal information and are subsequently killed, Martin flees East Berlin. His path to safety, which requires him to learn the identity of the double agent and reveal the circumstances of his own "defection"--wends from former coworkers and friends in England to a former lover in Washington, D.C., and back to Berlin. The first-person narrative involves the reader in a novel that offers more in the way of tangible atmosphere and characters than nonstop action. Recommended for popular fiction collections.
- V. Louise Saylor, Eastern Washington Univ. Lib., Cheney
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.