THE WALKING WIND

In The Golden Triangle (1978), Joe Stanford, U.S. secret agent, went into deep cover for the CIA, had plastic surgery to alter his features, and became Area Coordinator of the intelligence network based in the Philippines. This in turn led to his starcrossed love affair with Dawn, her death, and his eventual killing of his CIA boss in Washington. As a result of all this--which Proud recaps for new readers--the CIA, the KGB, the mainland Chinese, and--yes!--the Mafia are all out for Joe's skin and want him dead at any cost. Once more Joe goes into deep cover, gets new plastic surgery, muddies his trail, and becomes a Canadian on the slopes of the Spanish Mediterranean, where he builds a villa and goes into real estate before assuming a fully operational new identity as a spy novelist. For six years he turns out novels, getting better at it and even hitting the bestseller list--and then, of course, he suspects that the CIA has penetrated his new cover. Arrogantly, he kills the first suspicious visitor, who turns out to be a Mafia courier. And then a beautiful damsel in distress appears, so they both take off across Europe and hit Mr. Big of the Mafia while he's in bed with his Copenhagen porno queen. But the CIA is still hot for blood. . . and who is the secret CIA hit-person? Twisty enough for the most cat's-cradled taste, but it's all been done before with more verve and class.