THE VOYAGE UNPLANNED

The author of The Foxes of Harrow, et al., et al., et al. has written a novel of such hysterical sentimental intensity that it transcends the genre into a form of camp so high it is downright involving. It is the tale of a former O.S.S. (the C.I.A. of W.W. II) officer's search for a young French lady of the Resistance whom he's loved desperately for the past 28 years, ever since she inexplicably abandoned him after he rescued her from her Nazi torturers sometime after the Normandy invasion. While writing in the throes of painful recollections of his brief wartime honeymoon and the incredible (but historical, according to the author) feats John Farrow performed against the Gestapo, Waffen S.S., Wehrmacht and hapless collaborators -- the aging ex-hero encounters (and falls instantly and reciprocally in love with) an Israeli agent who is both the younger sister and the exact replica of the woman he once loved, now dead. The hitch (on his side) is whether she's merely using him to entrap a former Nazi who is now working with a Black September group, and the hitch (on her side) is whether Farrow loves her or just a memory. Their troubles, as can be expected, are resolved when the Arabs get theirs and spies come out of the cold (in the midst of endless rhetoric) in Israel. The wartime exploits are fascinating and the devotion so intense it makes the average marriage look like a New York Times advertisement for Bill Blass sheets.