WALL GAMES

How the Berlin Wall really came down: an ill-timed fictional peek behind the scenes in a Germany slouching toward reunification--despite the best efforts of the superpowers to keep the Wall in place. This is British political advisor Dobbs's first hard-cover appearance. Harry Benjamin is a CIA recruit posted to the Berlin embassy to keep him out of trouble under the hoydenish eye of his superior Mary Pickerstaff. Since he has no contacts and no diplomatic experience, he naturally realizes that the ""spontaneous"" demonstrations against the Wall have actually been orchestrated by industrialist Edward Schumacher--and that Schumacher (whose uninhibited, haunted wife, Katherine, Harry would love to bed) is a KGB agent bent on pressing for German reunification solely in order to torpedo delicate arms talks between weakening Soviet Premier Andreyev and airheaded US President Michelle on behalf of those dissident KGB officers who still won't accept glasnost despite countless fictional defeats. Katherine turns out to be ""so much more"" than the ""mere girls"" who once shared Harry's bed, but that's the extent of his satisfactions, as his desperate bid to unmask Schumacher runs afoul of Miss Pickerstaff's orders, Katherine's scruples, Schumacher's uncanny ability to defuse Harry's threats, and eventually--in a scene that's been a long time coming--the crumbling Wall itself. Dobbs's determined bleakness, untouched by humor or any complexity of motive, seems forced and even a little naive. For like-minded readers.