THE CLOWN

Corcoran has refined the blend of intrigue and romance first attempted in the trivial Meet Me at Tamerlaine's Tomb (KR, p. 181, J-61), but this is still without the body or, oddly, the bouquet of her earlier home-grown daydreams. Here orphaned Liza, almost seventeen, falls instantly in love with a (Soviet) Georgian clown performing in Moscow. The clown is nervous; Liza follows him and finds a KGB agent also on his tail, about to arrest him for having applied for an exit visa to Israel. But Liza, a late U.S. consul's daughter, knows her way around, and--without a hitch though you're sure there has to be one by page 188--smuggles him (with inept, obnoxious Uncle George's passport) to Copenhagen, where the friendly housekeeping couple she lives with there help her to accept his leaving for a circus career in the States. Smooth, well managed escapism.