THE HENCHMAN

Bornemark (The Dividing Line, 1988; The Messenger Must Die, 1986) now writes of a Swedish journalist-on the East German espionage payroll--who reluctantly participates in a bloody operation without knowing the identity of the targeted victim. The new warmth in international relations seems not to have thawed out anything in Stockholm, where Jonas Frey spies for the East Germans in private while writing for the periodicals in public. To Frey's annoyance, his German masters have sent him a new roommate--as well as orders to be a good team member and cooperate with the fellow as he sneaks around the frozen city, setting up an assassination. In accordance with company policy, Klammer, the assassin, is to tell Frey nothing about whom they are to kill, but Frey believes he has a way around that. He activates his own private spy network to chip away at Klammer's secret--and, eventually, it becomes distressingly clear that Klarnmer's target has something to do with Frey's own cozy little world of treacherous bureaucrats and their political masters. But Frey's best efforts fail in the end; and on the day of the assassination, he drives Klammer to the assignment still not knowing who's to be hit--and more than a little afraid of who it might be. A tidy but very, very chilly thriller.