MR. ARKADIN

Possibly based on a film script, this international itinerary through some shabby byways of the underworld owes a little to the early Eric Ambler. A dying man leads Guy van Stratten, a very flexible opportunist, to Gregory Arkadin- a man with more than a million but a man with no past, beyond the rather inscrutable legend he has achieved. It also leads him to Raina, Arkadin's eighteen year old daughter, untouched and untouchable. Hired by Arkadin to fill in his past which he claims is blanked out, van Stratten's search takes him from continent to continent- to the few who remember his sordid genesis- as a pimp and a sneakthief- but who now die for having remembered him, until van Stratten realizes that he is the last and most expendable.... Again largely for the mystery market, this is sinuous, sinister, and probably more readable than believable.