ALWAYS A SPY

A much better than average spy thriller with new scenery (Yugoslavia), a plot full of Balkan intrigue, and the reappearance of spy Harry Ryder (Once A Spy, 1980). Ryder and Lissa Meirion have not gotten off to a good start. Brought together by their governments against their will and strongly urged to combine their special skills and cooperate in the search for a missing spy, the two do not hit it off. He's an American in his 50's, trying to get out of the spy business; she's British, the widow of a spy, a linguist and scholar. She's also smashing to look at. Prepared to be grumpy at their second meeting as well, Lissa and Harry find that they mesh perfectly as together they neatly wipe out a Libyan rent-a-hit-team trying to throw Lissa off the platform of the Bayswater tube station. That incident is an indication of the kind of working conditions that go with the assignment. Operating under the secret commands of the very highest level spymasters, the new team must ward off Scotland Yard and the CIA as well as assorted murderous Russians and Yugoslavians as they make their way to Austria and points south in search of the missing Ethan Pickering--a search that puts them smack in the middle of a plot to win Serbian preeminance in Yugoslavia through an unholy partnership with the Russians. Crashing good fun with the welcome bonus of an intelligent and entertaining romance.