Heart's Journey in Winter

This Cold War thriller strives for a lean, elliptical effect but, unfortunately, bleeds into dullness and occasional incomprehensibility. Buchan (A Parish of Rich Women) tells the history of a diplomatic initiative--called The Golden Plough after the remote inn where it's hatched--begun in 1983, and he relies on the reader having extensive knowledge of German politics in that period. Narrator Richard Fisher is a paunchy, middle-aged British spy who often finds himself aiding leftist German politician Sebastian Ritter, who appears to have an inside track for cobbling together a ruling coalition in the upcoming Bundestag elections. A deployment of midrange nuclear missiles in Europe by the Soviet Union sends the NATO nations into a tizzy, and venerable American Cold Warrior Jack Polk flies to Geneva to straighten things out. In the course of arranging a meeting between Polk and Ritter, Fisher falls for American operative Polina Mertz, who accompanies Polk. Polina--a typical ``dangerous'' woman, who is more intelligent and manipulative than our hero--has somehow figured out that the Soviet Union will collapse unless it's given a graceful way to exit the arms race, and that the subsequent unification of Germany would be much more destabilizing to world peace. If you follow her logic, it appears that the Americans and the British must, paradoxically, help the Russians at all costs. But, because Buchan plays with the chronology to the point where occasional footnotes (and scorecards) are necessary to keep everything straight, little is as it appears to be; and no plot line is allowed to roll unimpeded long enough to gather momentum or tension. (July)