Books, Arts & Manners: Battling to the Finish

The Andropov Deception, by Brian Crozier (Beaufort, 243 pp., $15.95)

Brian Crozier, better known for his incisive work on European affairs and Soviet policy, turns to fiction in The Andropov Deception, producing a cinematic and timely spy novel. Heisnole Carré, to be sure, but he does spin a fast-moving and often plausible tale. I say plausible, for the tendency when reading such books, if the author is any good, is to think, Well, why not? In fact, as the Daily Mail remarked (the novel was previously published in England, under the byline John Rossiter), it is compelling to speculate just how much of this fiction is based on fact. (Mr. Crozier writes, in a Special Note, that only the death of Yuri Andropov, in 1984, made it possible to release this account of “one of the most secret operations of the KGB,” which Andropov headed from 1967 to 1982.)

JM

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Joe Mysak

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The Andropov Deception, by Brian Crozier (Beaufort, 243 pp., $15.95)

Brian Crozier, better known for his incisive work on European affairs and Soviet policy, turns to fiction in The Andropov Deception, producing a cinematic and timely spy novel. Heisnole Carré, to be sure, but he does spin a fast-moving and often plausible tale. I say plausible, for the tendency when reading such books, if the author is any good, is to think, Well, why not? In fact, as the Daily Mail remarked (the novel was previously published in England, under the byline John Rossiter), it is compelling to speculate just how much of this fiction is based on fact. (Mr. Crozier writes, in a Special Note, that only the death of Yuri Andropov, in 1984, made it possible to release this account of “one of the most secret operations of the KGB,” which Andropov headed from 1967 to 1982.)