Synopsis
CIA agent Mike Semko teams up with Mossad agent and art historian Rachel Sidrane to search for Dieter, the terrorist in possession of a list of people compiled by the Nazis during World War II. 30,000 first printing. $30,000 ad/promo.
Reviews
A tough-as-nails Delta Force vet who freelances for the CIA teams up with a Mossad lovely to hunt down a ruthless terrorist known only as Dieter in a twisty, to-the-ends-of-the-earth technothriller from Pollock (Threat Case, 1991; Payback, 1989, etc.). A sometime member of East Germany's secret police, the chameleon-like Dieter obtains from his late father (a former SS major) a roster of those to whom the Nazis sold stolen art treasures during WW II. To raise the millions he needs to revive the Red Army Faction, Dieter tracks down the surviving owners, killing them and selling their illicit masterpieces on the international black market. His murderous exploits on two continents soon put Langley, Tel Aviv, and Moscow on the renegade Stasi officer's trail. Leading the manhunt is Mike Semko, a fortysomething hard case who has a personal score to settle with Dieter. Semko is reluctantly paired with Rachel Sidrane, an American-born Israeli citizen who knows her way around fine art-- and modern weaponry. As the odd couple tracks Dieter along his corpse-strewn way from N.Y.C.'s Upper East Side to rural England, Paris, and beyond, they begin to realize there's rather more to Goering's little list than their duplicitous masters have told them. Nor do Mike and Rachel know until late in the game that the SVR (the KGB's successor) has dealt itself in. They persevere, however, and eventually corner Dieter, gunning him down in a spectacular shootout at his lair deep in the Black Forest. Slam-bang action (including a high-noon car chase through Midtown Manhattan), technical detail that attests to the author's familiarity with state-of-the-art hardware, wide-ranging plotlines that are kept under firm control, and characters of above-average complexity--all make for a vastly entertaining exercise in haute hokum. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
"Goering's list" (with names of the present owners of many art treasures missing since World War II) is the only legacy from a former SS man to his son in 1992. The son--a former member of the Stasi, the East German police force, now a most-wanted terrorist known as Dieter--immediately puts the information to use funding operations for his secret organization. Despite the considerable Mossad and CIA resources focused on him and his known associates, Dieter plans and executes a series of daring art robberies in New York and Britain. A CIA contract man and a female Mossad agent--each for their own personal and organizational reasons--are teamed to stop Dieter. The Russians, who have a long-standing interest in the list, join the fray. This action-packed thriller by a former intelligence officer and author of Centrifuge (Dell, 1992) and Payback (Delacorte, 1989) is a candidate for the summer vacation reading list.
- V. Louise Saylor, East Washington Univ. Lib., Cheney
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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