THE ACOLYTE

Greer Whitaker is a rarity in politics: a brilliant tactician as a campaign manager, as well as a man of principle. But when his conservative candidate for the Senate is arrested just weeks before the election, a devastated and disillusioned Greer is ripe for the picking, and the CIA taps him for a sensitive, potentially explosive national security operation.
A young idealist of the new conservative right, Greer is more determined than ever to serve his country in some meaningful way and, in doing so, to restore his now tainted reputation. So keenly does he feel this sense of mission that he never questions why he has been singled out for the job. Indeed, his confidence is running so high that he also never doubts his ability to handle the heated love affairs with two sexy but dangerous women who cross his path. Only after people start dying does Greer realize he's been duped - and at what cost. The heart-hammering suspense is unrelenting as Greer - initially blinded by his own hubris - now sees that he has unwittingly put his own life and the nation's security at risk, and must scramble for a way out of the deadly labyrinth.

An excellent novel. Fast-paced. An explosive combination of murder, violence, and national security guaranteed to keep the reader on the edge of the seat.

There are stars in the making. David Compton is one of them.

After bedding both blond and brunette spies, dodging bullets and trashing a brand-new BMW, a young Republican actually gets the President of the US to listen to him. Greer Whitaker, a 28-year-old political campaign manager who ``cried when Nixon died,'' loses his credibility and a chance at a Capitol Hill job when his Republican Congressional hopeful's campaign is revealed to be laundering drug money. Disgraced, disgusted, and still depressed over the lover who jilted him years ago in Germany, Greer applies for a job with the CIA. His fervent conservatism, unquestioning loyalty, and fluency in German make him an ``answered prayer'' to members of a supersecret CIA counterintelligence department eager to smoke out a mole mysteriously connected with the Stasi, the old Communist East German spy bureau. After two months of training, Greer is installed as an aide to National Security Adviser Randall Jenkins, the current President's best friend. Greer's job is to spy on Jenkins, whose protectionist biases threaten to upset an upcoming international trade agreement the President wants to sign. While combing top secret intelligence reports, Greer falls rapidly in love with Kate Mallotte, a leggy blond CIA analyst, and is then whisked off to Germany by Jenkins, who suspects that Germany and Japan might want to wage an economic war against America. Meantime, Greer's old girlfriend, Stephanie Becker, looks him up and, while they're making love, Jenkins is murdered. Stephanie, of course, has her own friends in the spy business, among them Erich Reagor, an old Stasi hand who would rather kill women than bed them. There are some nauseating executions and a final shoot-out in San Francisco that leaves everyone, including the President, dazed, bewildered, and ready to believe what Greer has learned about the evil intentions of the Germans and the Japanese. Good scenery and imaginative violence don't save this overplotted and underconvincing first thriller. (Film rights to Touchstone) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

According to Oxford, Miss., resident Compton, it was the sight of John Grisham walking into a local church that prompted him to write his first novel. In its lickety-split pacing, there's more than a touch of Grisham in this thriller about a young CIA agent who uncovers a global conspiracy; but, alas, there's also Grisham to be found in the obvious characters. Newly minted agent Greer Whitaker, 28, is assigned to spy on Randall Jenkins, the president's closest friend and advisor, as part of a sanctioned CIA operation to nail Jenkins as a foreign mole. What Whitaker doesn't know is that he is being used, if not set up, as part of another CIA operation, as secret agents and stubborn bureaucrats combine forces to keep the president unaware of an impending economic Pearl Harbor. Compton lacks the financial chops of a Michael Thomas?his conspiracy is barely described and never detailed?and once the real plot is uncovered and Whitaker goes on the run, the novel's energy flags. Whitaker is unbelievably gullible, as well; most readers will realize way before he does that the women in his life are more than they seem. But high concept and cinematic execution count for a lot in a thriller, and Compton delivers these in spades, which is one reason?along with a big movie sale?that this book has received significant advance publicity, albeit under the rather catchier title of Axis. Whatever the name, this novel likely will have bookstore cash registers ringing. Film rights to Touchstone for a film to be directed by Mike Newell.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

First-time novelist Compton relies on in-the-nick-of-time escapes to propel the intrigue, mechanics that will probably attract enough readers and moviegoers to offset the hundreds of thousands in movie rights and advances thrown at him. So much for business. On the literary ledger, Acolyte is structured as a plain chase story. Green CIA recruit Greer Whitaker, the chasee, flees from Germany when his ostensible boss, the national security adviser, on whom he spied for his real CIA boss, is murdered. Having possession of diskettes outlining the adviser's bombshell economic theory that Japan and Germany are plotting to control world trade, Whitaker absconds to preserve the evidence and his life, snaking across Austria, Mexico, and California, with the identity of his pursuers revealed in side plots. Add obligatory sex scenes with two women about whose loyalties the hapless Whitaker is in constant confusion, and the furniture of an espionage thriller--sans its finish--is on hand. Not great, but passes the popularity test. Gilbert Taylor