Husband, Lover, Spy: A True Story

Pennington, a hostess on the TV game show The Price Is Right , married German mountain-climber Friedrich (``Fritz'') Stammberger in 1974. The following year, while on an alleged climbing expedition where the borders of Russia, Afghanistan and Pakistan converge, he disappeared and was never heard from again. Pennington made inquiries, but , she claims, the CIA informed her that her search compromised national security. In 1980 she met Carlos de Abreu, a native of Mozambique, and four years later, when Fritz was legally declared dead, they married. To exorcise her first husband's ghost, Pennington and de Abreu continued to investigate his fate. Their quest ended in Moscow, where they found hazy information suggesting that Fritz had been a CIA spy, was dead and buried in Afghanistan. The book is overlong, much of the suspense is artificially generated and the writing is compromised by sophomoric gush. Photos. Author tour. (Jan.)