THE HAMBURG SWITCH

An improvement over The Burgos Contract, with British super-agent Mark Farrow showing a lighter touch. Farrow and his new young assistant--blithely comic foil Mackenzie--are dispatched to engineer the defection of German professor Eberhard Jagersberg (who has invented a superlaser space weapon sought by the Russians and others). The big escape is supposed to take place at night in Hamburg, with Farrow and Jagersberg swimming out to a motor launch operated by ""friendlies."" But at the last moment Jagersberg insists that his daughter be brought along, and when the three reach the dark launch, Farrow is betrayed--pushed back into the river. Whodunit? The two agents eventually track down the professor and his daughter, recover them from Israel's Mossad and fly them out of Hamburg airport. Still imitation .007, and talky as all get-out, but the comic touches are more than welcome.