Synopsis
In the wake of an important KGB agent's disappearance, an event of international proportions, crack journalist Irving Fein teams up with a television anchorwoman and stumbles on the story of a lifetime. 75,000 first printing. Tour.
Reviews
With nary a fistfight, chase or exchange of gunfire, the versatile Safire (Full Disclosure) fashions an engrossing post-Cold War thriller in which spies, bureaucrats and the media raise the trading of disinformation to an art form. Perpetually disheveled, middle-aged Irving Fein, the self-proclaimed "best reporter in the world," wants to write a book on his latest, startling scoop: that a KGB "sleeper spy," who for 20 years lived on standby status in the U.S., has disappeared?along with the colossal fortune that he, with the help of KGB intelligence and a mole in the U.S. Federal Reserve, has created from $2 billion in gold that Soviet hardliners gave him to invest on their behalf. Now the sleeper spy's handlers are dead, his identity is unknown and both the new Moscow government and the ousted KGB leaders, who have fallen in with a shady cadre of organized-crime figures, are out to track him down and claim the money. In order to attract a large book advance to fund Fein's digging, septuagenarian literary superagent Matt "Ace" McFarland teams the reporter with untested TV newscaster Viveca Farr. As the unlikely pair pursue their story, they will alternately tangle and cooperate with the CIA, the KGB, the Russian mafia and, ultimately, the sleeper himself. While Safire's characters tend toward the generic, and his romantic subplots lack sophistication, his clever dialogue and his masterful depiction of the bartering of information?true, half-true and patently false?are consistently fascinating. Like his characters, nearly all of whom practice some form of disinformation, Safire proves himself a master dissembler here, able to conjure plot twists that reveal nerve-racking truths previously hidden through his accomplished authorial sleight-of-hand. Major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Living in the U.S. as a normal citizen but ready to be activated as a spy on the word of his handler, a Russian "sleeper" has secretly amassed a $50 billion fortune. He murders his handler after the only other two people in the Russian government who knew his real identity die in a plane crash. This sets off a vicious search as both the Russian government and a shadowy organization of gangsters and hard-line ex-KGBers want to claim the money. The reader's entree into this world is Irving Fein, a freelance journalist who receives an anonymous tip about the sleeper and figures he's onto the story of a lifetime. Safire has created a nearly impenetrable universe of spies, counterspies, and triple agents, all of whom exchange an endless supply of disinformation. The book requires the reader to believe that just about everyone in the highest levels of the American and Russian governments is a turncoat, but Safire is a seasoned pro who makes it all work. George Needham
A sleeper is a spy sent to an enemy country at an early age to melt into the culture until being utilized, sometimes as long as 20 years later. Reporter Irving Fein is investigating such a person: a man who was sent by the former Soviet Union to the United States and then activated with KGB money, and who subsequently built up a fortune through investments and inside information from both Russia and the United States. When Fein's probing leads to the CIA, FBI, KGB (old and new), the new Russian Mafia, murder, and a suicide, the double and triple crosses begin to multiply. Twists and turns in this fast-moving thriller make it a real page-turner, which is an achievement in exposing espionage methods and government by the New York Times Magazine columnist and author of In Love with Norma Loquendi (LJ 9/15/94). Highly recommended.
-?Robert H. Donahugh, formerly with Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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