ASSET IN BLACK

by Casey Prescott ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 29, 1985

DIA, CIA, ISA, ISI, SIS, KGB, GRU, PCP, NTS, APNDPM: even by thriller standards, this convoluted espionage/counter-terrorism tale is thick with acronyms, dense with trade-craft--yet also fairly absorbing in its reworking of a bitter, cynical, essentially familiar scenario. Cordell Hunt, ex-CIA man and ""second-generation spook,"" is working as a mercenary anti-Soviet agent in Afghanistan--an employee of Triage, the ""paramilitary subsidiary"" of Innotech, a ""multinational security consultancy""--when he's captured by the KGB. Six months later, after total interrogation, Hunt is free, hiding out in Marrakech with Anastacia Martinova, the Afghan/White Russian freedom-fighter he has come to love. But it just so happens that Hunt, even though he might now be a KGB double, is the perfect agent to investigate Innotech's big new problem: bomb-attacks on its computer-controls around the world. So John Shy, an Innotech biggie and Hunt's old chum, arranges for Hunt to be smuggled from Morocco to Zurich; Anastacia is spirited away, becoming a virtual hostage (the KGB wants her badly); Hunt reluctantly takes on the new Innotech assignment--determined to save Anastacia, even if he has to ""put down half of NATO."" And Hunt is soon in N.Y., playing sexy cat-and-mouse games with terrorist queen Dania Morales, of the People's Crusaders for Peace, the mercenary group responsible for the attacks on Innotech. But who is paying the PCP to stage these attacks? Is it the KGB? Or someone at Innotech itself? Is there a Soviet mole within the supposedly unaligned Innotech ranks? And how did Innotech's encoding/decoding library (""the whole thing from index to cryptographic matrix generators"") wind up in the hands of the PCP? So go the questions--as Hunt tries to get hold of that coding library (a bargaining chip for Anastacia) while avoiding assorted assassins. . . and kindling several old flames. Talky, overlong, with neither of the two heroes (Hunt, Shy) fully developed--but first-novelist Prescott supplies enough sardonic texture and nasty details to make this gritty, slightly offbeat reading for fans of cool, down-and-dirty Intelligence tangles.

Pub Date: May 29, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Arbor House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1985

Categories: FICTION