CHINA SPY

Harry Ryder (Once A Spy and Always A Spy) is enlisted by the Chinese to help locate a stolen document before it can be published--an act that would bring the modernization of China to a disastrous halt. Ryder, a middle-aged, semiretired spook, has just kissed his mistress good-bye and sent her from Hong Kong back to the States when he is approached at the airport by the formidable security chief, Li Zhi Xian, and his ravishing, brainy niece and prize employee, Li Xiao Mei. The Lis wonder if the brilliant and cultured Mr. Ryder might not help them with a little problem. It seems that a computer printout of names has gone missing: it's a list of all the bureaucrats and party types who seem to be dragging their heels and slowing down the new modernization, people the reformers had planned to put out to pasture. In the wrong hands, the list would be dynamite, threatening the very heart of the reformist government. Harry, who loves China and the Chinese well enough to have become fluent in several dialects, and who is more than slightly taken with the stunning Miss Li, is, of course, interested. So's the CIA. Harry's old boss lends help, and the search is on. Harry poses as a banking expert and launches a lecture tour of the major cities, picking up more and more threads as he goes, until he and the Lis corner the very dangerous docu-thieves and their Soviet customers in Canton. The elegantly romantic Harry Ryder continues to charm and amaze in this most agreeable thriller.