Quiller Barracuda

Like his counterparts James Bond and Matt Helm, Quiller is a secret agent survivor of the '60s. Since his debut a quarter century ago in the Edgar-winning The Quiller Memorandum , Hall's agent-with-no-first-name has carried out his assignments for ``the Bureau,'' a top-secret British counter-intelligence agency, with an efficiency and emotional detachment that is at once chilling and fascinating. Aside from the requisite involvement with beautiful women on every assignment, Quiller shows few of his peers' idiosyncrasies; the job's the thing to Quiller, and the job this time takes him to Miami, where the Bureau's station agent has begun behaving strangely. No sooner does Quiller arrive than the man disappears, and the shadowy outlines of a vast and frightening mind-control conspiracy begin to surface. This taut, sophisticated thriller involves Quiller in the American presidential campaign, a large-scale cocaine smuggling operation and a network of Mafia killers, who threaten his life and (worse yet from his viewpoint) create a strong possibility that he will be pulled off the job before it is finished. A sure-fire pleaser for espionage fans. (May)