by Francine Mathews
Mathews, who has written two different mystery series—one starring Jane Austen as a murder-solving detective—has no shortage of imagination. And here she gets a cat's cradle of plots going. When the Vice President is kidnapped in a bloody attack while giving a speech in Berlin, the CIA's Counterterrorism Center turns to analyst Caroline Carmichael. She's an expert on a neo-Nazi terror group called 30 April, which is blamed for the kidnapping—and which she believes blew up a plane carrying her husband, Eric, two years earlier. But when a videotape shows that a very much alive Eric was spotted with the terrorists at the Vice President's abduction, Caroline flies to Berlin, hoping to make contact with her husband. (She's the "cutout," spook-speak for go-between.) Mathews's pacing is vigorous, but her plotlines—including a terrorist's child-custody woes—tend to get tangled. And her crucial assumption that Germany is ripe for a new Reich seems facile and crude, if not preposterous. (Bantam, $23.95)
Bottom Line: Fast-moving story, clunky ideas
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