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THE LIE by Michael Weaver

THE LIE

by Michael Weaver

Pub Date: March 6th, 1997
ISBN: 0-446-51814-X

A labyrinthine and loopy sequel to the pseudonymous Weaver's Deceptions (1995): Here, a hunky young painter who freelances for the CIA in Europe falls deeply in love with the idealistic journalist responsible for the murder of his parents. Having completed an undercover mission in Serbia, Paulie Walters comes home to the family villa overlooking the Bay of Naples to find the bodies of his mother and father (a sometime hit man for the American Mafia and US government). The two were inadvertently shot to death by Kate Dinneson, who had crept into the couple's bedroom of a summer's eve to query them about the circumstances in which Walters päre had gunned down her ultradical parents some two decades earlier. Time heals all wounds, however, and Paulie has no real problem forgiving luscious Kate her trespasses. Concurrently, the wider world's great and good have booked a conference on human rights into Wannsee, the Berlin venue where Hitler's henchmen planned the Holocaust. For base political reasons, US President Jimmy Dunster resolves to make a surprise appearance at the high-profile meeting—as does aging, guilt-ridden radical Klaus Logefeld (a professor at the University of Rome), who makes America's chief executive his hostage. Meanwhile, another assassin, working at the behest of the evil Vice President, bombs the site; the President survives, and Logefeld (who falls into an old sub-basement, where he dies) appears to have escaped. This suspicion is confirmed when Nicholas Vorelli, an ingratiating opportunist, assumes the dead man's mantle and demands a $100 million ransom, threatening further explosions. Following a demonstration blast, the money is delivered via credulous Kate, who believes Vorelli shares her utopian values. When it becomes clear he does not, the lethal young woman—with the help of an unaccountably besotted Paulie—takes matters into her own hands. . . . Far-fetched twaddle, in deadly earnest but notably lacking sympathetic characters, sophisticated dialogue, and suspense.