THE SECRET LIST OF HEINRICH ROEHM

This slow-gripping novel of Mideast intrigue spans nearly two years up until the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. When Israeli commandos capture what they believe to be a new top-secret Egyptian radar station off the Suez coast, the installation turns out to be a Russian IRBM base whose nuclear missiles are aimed not at Israel, but rather at the important Arab oil-producing nations. The discovery immediately triggers a joint Mossad-CIA intelligence operation to tap the KGB grapevine via a Soviet spy--known only as Minerva 6N--who's been inactive since World War II. A clever counterespionage chess game with Odessa-like verisimilitude. This is the best so far by an author now using a new name (Michael Bar-Zohar).