SPLIT BAMBOO

It's bamboo as in Bamboo Curtain, and while this doesn't provide any extraordinary insights into Communist China, there is enough detail to make that Never-neverland real and to add exoticism to the story of an American spy. Larry Heddon is our man from the C.I.A. and he's been drilled to impersonate Richard Bliss, an American defector who had become a Chinese intelligence officer. Heddon arrives on the scene right after the real Bliss (suddenly in disfavor) was supposed to have been assassinated, but he has enough time to march into Peking headquarters for the necessary information and to rescue his teenage son David (kidnapped by Bliss several years before). He is then assisted by a surprisingly effective organization of American supporters on an extensive crosscountry escape back to Hong Kong. None of the characterizations go very far-- David's alienation from his father, for having abandoned him, turns into admiration in a particularly superficial fashion-- but they are all at least familiar, unexaggerated types. The action and the setting will however serve to hold the attention of boys.