THE PIPER'S TUNE

Espionage thrillers in the glasnost age can be just as improbable and entertaining as during the cold war if this lively and fast-paced adventure is any indicator. The difference now is that, rather than opposing one another, American agent Harry Morse and Russian GRU specialist Dimitri Vlasov are working together—or are they? Morse is called out of hiding by his trusted mentor and asked to cooperate with Vlasov in tracking down a missing Soviet operative with a most dangerous secret—a man who has apparently been kidnapped by terrorists and sold to the highest bidder. Sexy Stacey Lowell, a fellow agent, soon captures Morse's attention (with skills both romantic and deadly), as do the myriad thugs and killers who turn up with amazing regularity in stairwells, behind trees, and at the hero's supposedly impenetrable mountain retreat. A parachute foray into Iran proves bloody but fruitless; a similar mission in the jungles of Colombia is more successful—but a disaster for the good guys; and the true nature of the quest and the threat is finally confronted in San Francisco and resolved on the rain-slicked outer wall of the Transamerica Pyramid building high above the city. Warren has some decidedly right-wing ideas about government (essentially cowardly and evil), the press (much, much worse), and the future (the world's economy will eventually be based on cocaine) that will appall some readers and confirm the worst suspicions of others. But they'll all be turning the pages to see what happens next.