HANDS ACROSS THE CAVIAR

A sequel to Bears In the Caviar continues the debonair diplomatic experiences of Charles Thayer, secretary at the Moscow Embassy for seven years, and now with Tito and the partisans in Belgrade where he witnessed the Yugoslav ""liberation"" from the Germans during the war. This is again a very candid close-up of what went on when the trigger-happy Soviet moved in and drained the country of wheat and wine and slivovitz, looted jeeps as well as native possessions, while the bout between Tito and King Peter is reported from the ringside. Transferred to Austria as the Chief of O.S.S. in occupied Austria, Thayer's next assignment was to round up surviving Nazis in that area, and once again there's a picture of the uneasy, unarmed truce between the two occupying armies- American and Russian. Another transfer sends him on to Seoul, in Korea, where he negotiated (haggled) with the Russians once again- this time to give Korea a democratic government.....If not quite as funny as the first book, this is still a jaunty and vivacious account from behind the scenes and behind the front lines.