The Virgin and the Dynamo

RONALD BERMAN

Blackford Oakes, who has just finished saving the Queen, would like to do the same for Germany. But Stained Glass is more of a novel than a thriller, and it differs from the idols of its marketplace in some interesting ways. The first is in its sense of character. The second is in the correlative of its title. The third and most important difference is political. Stained Glass is squarely centered on a political issue, not a fantasy. It is worth reading and remembering because it is informed by strategy, and consists, as a novel, in the working out of a political possibility.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

RONALD BERMAN

Blackford Oakes, who has just finished saving the Queen, would like to do the same for Germany. But Stained Glass is more of a novel than a thriller, and it differs from the idols of its marketplace in some interesting ways. The first is in its sense of character. The second is in the correlative of its title. The third and most important difference is political. Stained Glass is squarely centered on a political issue, not a fantasy. It is worth reading and remembering because it is informed by strategy, and consists, as a novel, in the working out of a political possibility.