THE WHITE HOUSE CONNECTION

The Irish peace process is at risk in a listless thriller short on twists and devoid of tingles. Somebody’s been gunning down the Sons of Erin, a terrorist group famous for gunning down others. In the interests of the peace process, this has to be stopped, say the American President and the English Prime Minister. Call out the clandestine hotshots. On the British side, that means Brigadier Charles Ferguson, cool of manner, clipped of speech, plus the redoubtable ex-terrorist Sean Dillon and Chief Inspector Hannah Bernstein, who have helped save Western Civ in several of Higgins’s 29 novels (Flight of Eagles, 1998, etc.). It soon becomes evident that there is nothing political about the Sons of Erin offings. Those boys are being done in by Lady Helen Lang, a widow of mature years and the mother of an intelligence officer brutally slain by the group she is decimating. Lady Helen is not only lethal and determined, she also has remarkable ears. She overhears President Cazalet and his chums discussing the identity of an inner-circle spy. The President is in his apartment; Lady Helen is outside, below in the garden shrubbery. (Come now, Mr. Higgins!) Early on, Higgins deserts what there is of plot, yielding to a career-long passion for chases and shoot-outs. The current quarry is a villainous terrorist named Jack Barry. But he’s one of those Moriarity-like villains, endlessly elusive. Finally, the ailing Lady Helen (a dicey heart) entices him to meet, man to woman, at her Norfolk estate. She has him in her gun-sights, and then, yet again, Dillon, that nine-lived devil, does his thing. But trust him to see to it that Lady Helen can die happy. At final curtain, Dillon says to Bernstein, “Do you ever feel tired, my love? Really tired?” It’s a question that might, with relevance, be put to the author. (Book-of-the-Month Club main selection)