cover image Barbarossa Red

Barbarossa Red

Dennis Jones. Little Brown and Company, $0 (366pp) ISBN 978-0-316-47292-0

The most arresting part of this generally humdrum futuristic adventure, which presents a scenario for a Warsaw Pact assault into West Germany in 1989, is the action that follows the eventual invasion. Unfortunately, it is too little, too late. Nearly two-thirds of the book consists of a rather slow-moving, conventional political thriller in which charismatic and powerful West German Chancellor Ernst Rudel pulls Germany out of NATO and plans to develop a German nuclear force, a clear threat to the arms pact negotiated by the American and Soviet leaders. Rudel's actions throw both the U.S. and Soviet leadership into disarray as the balance of power in Europe is seriously altered. Amid defections, assassination plots and high placed Soviet spies within the German government, American CIA agent Paul Brand attempts to head off a nuclear confrontation as the Soviet army begins its push into Germany. Jones's Rubicon One had more pizzaz. (May 5)