Last Spy Out

Several chase and spy scenes hint that Andrews (author of Center Game , former CIA officer and current arms-manufacturer lobbyist) could write a thriller superior to this paean to right-wing elitism, should he relinquish his role of self-appointed CIA propagandist. Germany's economy has collapsed under the strain of reunification, and Hitler clone Dietrich Neuhaus has become chancellor. Neuhaus helps Party secretary Yegor Ligachev engineer the overthrow of Mikhail Gorbachev; together they will ``push the Americans out of Europe.'' But it's the CIA to the rescue: as Steven Telford, the Agency's new director, learns, the U.S. has a man in Germany with a source inside German intelligence. However, there's trouble at home too: Joseph Cantabile, a gin-swilling senator who wants a ``toothless America,'' is willing to ``smear the Agency'' and cozy up to the Russians to further his own ambitions. The author seems oblivious of the implications of his scenario when he disparages the U.S.S.R. as ``a nation run by a very few men,'' a phrase that also describes his vision of the U.S., in which an imperial president (coached by the CIA) calls the shots unhampered by the ignorant masses and their representatives. (June)