Pillars of Fire

Author of a half-dozen previous adventure novels, Shagan develops this fast-moving techno-thriller around the ``Muslim bomb.'' The year is 1992. Pakistan is manufacturing nuclear warheads for supply to Libya, whose targets are Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The rockets are being made by a German firm shielding neo-Nazi scientists. The Israeli task is to destroy both the Libyan launch sites and the Pakistani nuclear facility without triggering a world war. But their plans depend on a deep-cover CIA agent, journalist Tom Lawford, who is facing a crisis of conscience. The key of the work is Shagan's insistence that a continuum exists between the Holocaust and current Islamic hostility to Israel. In developing this point, however, he devotes excessive space to a subplot marginal to the novel's resolution. Otherwise, the complex story line is handled well, the denouement making clever use of contemporary technologies--including one aircraft just canceled by the U.S. Characterization of Israel as a warfare state by necessity adds a chilling dimension to a provocative story. $100,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Sept.)