One Eyed Kings

Extensive interior monologues weaken the dramatic irony in this otherwise powerful thriller. While personally investigating the gruesome murder of senator Joshua Stock, fellow senator Sean Falcone discovers the lawmaker might have been spying for the Israelis. To his horror, he learns that the White House has secretly hired the Israeli secret service to help with the languishing Strategic Defense Initiative but has planted a spy in the Mossad. The subsequent murder of this agent has the earmarks of a Mossad operation, but Falcone has reason to think that Stock's death might be related to a Soviet plot. All the major players, however, turn out to be ``one-eyed kings'' in ``the land of the blind.'' Frustrated by the impenetrability of the apparent Soviet scheme, Falcone agrees to work with Washington Post reporter Philip Dake, to whom he does not reveal all he suspects, and Mossad ``Killer Angel'' Rachel Yeager, about whom he entertains some doubts. After surviving an apparent attempt on his life, Falcone, accompanied by Yeager and followed by Dake, flies to Israel, where, dodging more hit squads, the heroes unravel an ingenious plot to destroy that nation. U.S. senator Cohen (coauthor of The Double Man ) portrays the workings of Washington politics with studied realism, and his plot rings true down to the surprises in the shattering finale. (May)