cover image Angle of Attack

Angle of Attack

Robin A. White. Crown Publishers, $20 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-517-57809-4

White's second techno-thriller (following The Flight from Winter's Shadow ) is set in the summer of 1990, as the superpowers continue strategic defense research in a waning Cold War. The U.S. has a ``sight''--a targeting computer developed by maverick designer Wyn Gallagher. The Soviets have a ``gun''--a beam weapon, brainchild of physical chemist Elena Pasvalys. An American plot to bring the inventors and their work together becomes urgent as Iraq readies nuclear-armed missiles at a Libyan base. This tale of double cross and derring-do turns on light-plane aerobatics, a hobby Gallagher and Pasvalys share. White's descriptions of aerobatics technique and technology soar; elsewhere the book is more predictable than convincing. Alternating tones of gung-ho fighter-pilot enthusiasm and cynical world-weariness in the style of John le Carre give a curiously schizophrenic quality to a novel further handicapped by a slow pace and implausible plot. (Mar.)