OUR MAN IN VIENNA

A genial successor to Our Man in Belize (1997) continues Conroy's deliciously unserious memoirs of life in the Foreign Service in 1960s Vienna, where suspected Russian spies apply for visas and the notorious mistress of mobster Bugsy Siegel asks for help.

Conroy frankly admits that his memory has sometimes failed and that names have been changed, but he offers a wryly humorous recollection all the same. His view is not from the lofty perches of the Embassy but the more lowly regions of the Consulate, where he is initially a vice-consul responsible for issuing visas. Vienna is not Belize, and the eating and drinking is so good that he soon regains most of the weight he lost in Central America. Antiques (especially fine Art Nouveau pieces) are cheap, too, and as a pianist there are not only concerts to enjoy but superb pianos to acquire. But it's also the height of the Cold War, don't forget, and applications for visas to the US must be carefully scrutinized (which means Conroy often has to meet with the CIA over lunch to discuss such applicants as the businessman who claims he was only wearing a Red Army uniform in a photograph in his file to impress his girlfriend). The author describes colorful colleagues like Theo (the dipso legal adviser who invaded Stalingrad on a bicycle) and relates the various odd jobs that fell his way (such as ensuring that an elderly American who wanted to be a ballet dancer got his monthly remittance, and helping an old woman from Brooklyn escape from a Budapest man she was convinced was slicing flesh off her feet). But after dealing with this rich mix of cons, innocents, and lost souls, Conroy was eventually transferred to Washington, where he learned to tangle with an often obtuse State Department and some devious official foreign visitors.

Though the humor is sometimes strained, and the tone dated, the period charm and infectious goodwill more than compensate.