The Man with Many Names

In a stunning tale of Cold War politics, espionage, betrayal and atonement, a disillusioned U.S. intelligence officer known only as ``the Adviser'' is dispatched to the Sultanate of Oman on the Arabian peninsula circa 1980 to help British forces crush a populist uprising. A failed seminary student turned spy, the Adviser, who was raised by nuns in a series of orphanages, is a reluctant warrior, skeptical of America's Third World meddling and nauseated by the carnage he unleashes. As he shares his most personal secrets with a British sergeant major, we gradually learn why the Adviser suffers from a tormented conscience: his previous assignment involved penetrating an antinuclear protest group in England and betraying his pregnant fiancee, a British activist involved with physically blocking the deployment of U.S. cruise missiles in Britain. Collin (Contessa) draws fiercely memorable characters, such as ``Napalm,'' a former chaplain driven berserk by battle trauma and who now repeatedly mutters or screams his nickname as he tools around wearing an Arab kaffiyeh like some kind of demented Lawrence of Arabia. The Adviser's decision to adopt an Arab girl whom he orphaned by tossing a grenade into her house caps a sophisticated novel that rivets both as an intelligent spy thriller and as a grimly humorous expose of war's absurdities (Feb.)