Victory and Honor

Diehard fans will best appreciate Griffin's slow-moving sixth Honor Bound novel, which picks up where The Honor of Spies (2009), also co-written with son Butterworth, left off in the spring of 1945. Lt. Col. Cletus Frade of the OSS, besides trying to prevent Nazis from fleeing to Argentina, is concerned with the survival of the soon-to-be-disbanded OSS and increasing tension with the U.S.S.R. The action-starved plot takes nearly 100 pages to get underway, and when it does, the drama is sporadic, choppy, and interrupted by lots of macho camaraderie. An intriguing subplot mentioned early on%E2%80%94a rogue Nazi U-boat that escaped Allied detection and is now chugging toward Japan with atomic secrets on board%E2%80%94goes nowhere. Frade, for his part, is his usual pushy, smart-alecky self and most likely destined to be a higher-up in the OSS's successor, the CIA. Techno-thriller fans will relish the detailed descriptions of weapons and aircraft. (Aug.)