Fallout

In the aftermath of Chernobyl, a patient escapes from a Soviet mental hospital. As he wanders through a blighted landscape struggling to recapture blocked memories, British Intelligence and the KGB hunt him for the secret he holds--a secret that threatens glasnost itself. Royce delivers a low-tech thriller in which events at Chernobyl are no more than a backdrop for a conventional escape-and-evasion plot depending on trade-craft rather than gadgets. The book's most distinguishing feature is its setting in the Russo-Polish borderland, where the region's characteristics--sparse road networks, little auto traffic and few strangers--propel the action. The fast pace, however, is diminished by Royce's reliance on coincidence and serendipity; the protagonist's secret is so built up that its revelation at the end becomes anticlimactic. (Sept.)