CHECKPOINT

East Berlin, West Berlin, and some of the points between frame an extroverted action story in which the Intelligence is only incidental. Sent there to strengthen the American-Russian entente is American Geoff Schuyler, and his tour of duty is recorded by an old friend, former diplomat, and writer Harry Harding. Both become involved in Bureau X with its terrorist activities; in the defection, which may not be bonafide, of one Max Ebers; and with the incendiary Annemarie (whom Harding had once loved) who has since become a local Joan of Arc, helping East Zone refugees. Her arrest and trial is a demand for Schuyler's intervention and for action, and while it is successful and enables her escape, it scuttles his mission and destroys his usefulness.... Obvious light entertainment but not really convincing; this is that no man's land where possibility and probability never quite converge.