INFERENCE OF GUILT

In 1946 Dimitriu Calinescu, former Nazi cohort, becomes an agent for the Viennabased OSS--but he's really a double agent, and he betrays a young Romanian OSS recruit to the NKVD. . . before himself emigrating to the US, with help from OSS agent Steve Browning. Now, however, years later, Congress is going after old Nazi war-criminals; and Calinescu--now ""James Callin,"" a multimillionaire living in high style in California--is a prime target, with revelations about both his Communist and Nazi affiliations. So, over at the CIA, Director of Operations George Wendell (who was chief of the Vienna station in 1946) is getting suspicious about veteran agent Browning, who helped Calinescu. Could Browning be a KGB mole? And where has the CIA's fat dossier on Browning disappeared to? Well, it's in the hands of Silas Ruffing, a fellow agent who knows that best-friend Browning was bribed (a $20,000 check) into aiding Calinescu back in 1946. And when Browning himself realizes that his past is about to be exposed, he sets out for California to assassinate Callin. Densely authentic CIA suspense, in a conventionally layered but suavely polished plot-frame--from a longtime intelligence officer.