GAME'S END

Charles Marceau, the young Resistance hero of The Dangerous Game (1977), is now a seasoned lieutenant of 19, parachuted by the British to a French farm from which he must direct sabotage operations to coordinate with the Normandy invasion. Cool and quick-thinking as ever, Charles also dispatches a traitor to the Resistance; saves Paris from a Communist uprising--which might bring its leaders power after the war but only at the cost of the city's destruction by the Germans still entrenched there; and joins French forces invading Germany after the liberation of Paris. In Germany he disobeys orders to raid a concentration camp, only to find the camp abandoned and the girl he is seeking there--his love and comrade of the previous volume--listed as dead. More than ever Charles' clich‚d reflections, utter competence, and devotion to duty (tinged only by compassion) make him something of a wooden hero--yet once again the drama and fervor make an exciting story for those stirred by dreams of la gloire.