The mysterious crash of a private UN plane at New York's La Guardia airport gets this second spy novel by British author Porter (Remembrance Day) off to a rousing start. The only survivor is former British spy Robert Harland, who wakes up to find himself floating in the freezing East River. Harland, once an MI6 rising star, is now a water specialist for the United Nations, doing good and honorable work for a change. After he survives the crash of the U.N. plane, he is suddenly the target of harassment, threats, assault; then somebody tries to kill him. When a nervous young man named Tomas Rath shows up, claiming to be Harland's son, the ex-spy finds himself caught up in a multigovernment dragnet intended to plug intelligence leaks, a grisly exposé of a brutal Bosnian war criminal and a confrontation with a painful piece of his past he would prefer to forget. While being hounded by Walter Vigo, a ruthless British spymaster, Harland tries to unravel the mystery of his son, his former Czech lover and the elusive Lipnik, a Serb mass murderer thought to be dead, but actually very much alive and under the odd protection of several Western powers. This is a spy yarn full of suspense, action, unexpected plot twists and the fascinating detail of covert spy operations where everyone is a liar, even the good guys. Porter has the deft touch of a spy handler, manipulating the plot with skill and never letting up on the risk, tension and uncertainty that come with intelligence activity and danger. Agent, Georgina Capel. (Mar.)
Forecast:Porter, the British editor of
Vanity Fair, writes frequently for numerous publications in the U.K. Similar exposure in the U.S. (he lives part-time in New York) would help him build his rep here, but spy novel aficionados should find their way to his work regardless.
