Frost the Fiddler

Most concert violinists wouldn't pack explosives in the case along with their Stradivarius. But the narrator of this high-spirited and engaging spy novel is no ordinary musician. When Leslie Frost is not performing the Kreutzer sonata, she's spying on neo-fascists in post- glasnost /pre-unification East Germany. Frost, aka Smith (code names for the agents in the all-female band of American operatives come from the Ivy League's Seven Sisters schools; only Smith and Barnard are still alive), is James Bond in black leather and lipstick. With an array of life-saving gadgets up her sleeve (and in her purse), she's as savvy and sex-driven as Ian Fleming's prototype. After witnessing a murder outside an East German church, Frost is drawn into a mission that centers on a powerful computer and a ring of communist spies. The plot gets a bit abstruse, but the hard-boiled heroine has enough panache to keep readers turning the pages. Weber's ( The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway ) flair for satire is highlighted in her hilarious portrait of a publicist who will stop at nothing to get her clients' names in print. 35,000 first printing; movie rights to MGM. (May)