Skorpion's Death

In Paris, a pregnant Ella Borries contacts Cody (the tough-talking mononymic narrator of Blood Group O and Cold War) to search for her missing husband, a pilot for an unknown organization. Cody traces Borries to Tunisia where she again encounters Crevecoeur, a French intelligence officer searching for a revolutionary group code-named Skorpion, which trafficks in stolen nuclear weapons. When a series of bomb blasts occurapparently set to kill Crevecoeurhe tries to dissuade Cody from further involvement as they both are on the same trail; instead, she teams up with a shrewd, blind journalist with a nose for a hot story. The two locate Skorpion headquarters, are captured and tortured, and escape only to find themselves lost in the Sahara. The events of a complicated plot are neatly strung on a taut thread of tension. It's Cody's mind and voice, however, that steal this book. She tosses off life-and-death quips the way others in her field throw hand grenades, and where they would rely on a dossier, she simply reads the information she needs off the creases in her quarries' faces. January 62