The Bucharest Dossier

When CIA analyst Bill Hefflin, the hero of Maz’s uneven debut, arrives in Bucharest, Romania, in fall 1989, drawn by promises of secret intelligence from the mysterious Boris, the KGB mole he runs, undercurrents of a coup are already rippling through the city. Hefflin, a native of Romania who laments the repressive state of his native country, has an ulterior motive for wanting to return: He wants to find his childhood love, Pusha, and rekindle their romance. Never trained for fieldwork, Hefflin finally meets up with Boris and gets swept into the chaotic uprising that leads to the assassination of Nicolae Ceausescu. Along the way, Hefflin’s search for Pusha distracts him from his professional responsibilities, yet helps him make peace with the loneliness in his life. Maz does a good job portraying late-1980s Romania, a time of food shortages, crackdowns on all forms of dissent, and rampant government corruption, but Hefflin’s constant missteps and miscalculations make it hard to take him seriously as a CIA operative who runs spies. And his romance, while poignant at times, tends to muddle the main plot. Maz shows enough talent to suggest he can do better next time. (Mar.)