Cry Spy

When a friend and former colleague is killed with a slow-acting poison, it's up to Alan Trosper ( Spy Wednesday ) to find out who did it and why. The murder has the look of a Moscow Center hit, but there's more to it than that--and clues quickly point the reader toward trouble within the American organization. Setting his mousetrap requires the curmudgeonly Trosper to do a good deal of traveling and dining across Europe, and--when not grousing about the food or showboating his knowledge of local custom (usually in front of his hapless female assistant, Ida)--he makes a sympathetic hero. Hood's career in the CIA and OSS has apparently left him better informed about shuffling paper and ordering a la carte than about any actual espionage, but his insider's view does give this fiction the unmistakable flavor of real-life experience. Overall, the novel is soggy and low-spirited, with too many characters and not enough plot or real characterization, but gourmands of espionage will probably consume it with gusto all the same. 35,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; BOMC selection. (Jan.)