WHEN EIGHT BELLS TOLL

By the author of The Guns of Navarone, this is a ridiculous but sometimes tense adventure-mystery about ""the best secret agent in Europe,"" Philip Calvert. Her Majsty's gold bullion has been hijacked on the high seas off Scotland, and some secret agent buddies of Calvert's died in the caper. During the course of recovering the hidden bullion (it is in a sunken ship), Calvert himself kills ""our friends"" (the enemy) mercilessly. As the dead on both sides accumulate, Uncle Arthur (read ""M"")--the admiral in charge of the service--himself joins Calvert. The plot twists feature characters with triple loyalties--you don't know whose side they're on--and a masochistic Greek multimillionaire who likes to whip his wife... but is that only a show? The two female characters, a retired movie star and a socialite, are not much when compared with J. Bond's sultry impedimenta. But the novel's opening ten pages or so are a masterstroke of sustained danger.