Rent: Into the Volcano: A Mallory and Morse Novel of Espionage

This 60s era cold war throwback is admirably played straight, and not for Austin Powers style laughs. There are even a few nicely drawn whacked-out thugs in the Elmore Leonard mode. Let's hope the true blue heroes are given a little more substance in the follow-ups.

For those who like the James Bond and Matt Helm books, this one is a must. It's every bit as good as the best of Fleming. The book is set in 1962 (like Fade to Blonde) and is reminiscent of not only the Bond books, but the Avengers (and a little Cool & Lam) as well in that it's a team of a man and woman spies. There's lot's of humor, but Phillips never resorts to satire ala Austin Powers. His villain is one to rival Dr. No, Blofeld or Goldfinger.

Ok, so it's genre fiction. But, all things considered, it's pretty good genre fiction. Forrest DeVoe, Jr. is no John LeCarre, but (thank God) he's no Harlan Coben either.

Into the Volcano (HarperCollins, anticipated publication 2004), his debut novel under the DeVoe nom de plume, is a redux of every subgenre of the espionage thriller. A Dutch spy has been murdered in Istanbul and the dynamic duo of clandestine American operatives, Jack Mallory and Laura Morse, are sent to Turkey to avenge his death. Amidst Mallory's pursuit of Central Asian tail (of course) and Morse's silent pining for Jack (of course), they uncover a Cold War plot (of course) to smuggle all the gold out of the Turkish Treasury via underground tunnels. Posing as New York tourists in a troubled marriage, Jack lures the killers out into the open so they can kick some Soviet (of course). But the spectre of Cold War menace has just begun. The diabolical Russians are plotting world domination from their secret compound on the tropical island of He'Konau and Jack and Laura must storm the compound and disrupt their plans.

Your mission (should you accept it) is to get through this book without laughing. The premise is ridiculous, the characters have the depth of a frisbee, and the plot devices are cliched and predictable.

Still, for fans of the espionage novel, this is an interesting read in terms of its postmodern dedication to total eclecticism. The original British spy novels, marked by the 1907 publication of The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad, were realistic, morally ambiguous, and nicely written, with little sex or violence. Until World War II, ethical ideas about espionage precluded glamorizing it in fiction. However, after World War II and the birth of the American spy novel, the operative's life became a metaphor for existential male angst - unambiguously heroic, unrealistic, violently macho, and chauvinistically sexy.

No one epitomized this more than Ian Fleming's 1950's-60's hero, James Bond. The name Bond - James Bond - is synonymous with spy fiction, though the books were misogynist and completely oblivious to their Cold War political context. Reveling in sadomasochistic sexuality, Bond resents being teamed up with a woman, whom he calls "a silly [...]" and likens to all women in their existence for his sexual recreation.

Nineteen seventy-four brought George Smiley in John LeCarre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which shifted the genre from hyper-masculine fantasy to well-written, complex plots and a healthy dose of realism about the Cold War.

Then, in 1984, Tom Clancy published The Hunt for Red October. Playing on American fears of the Reagan-era arms race, Clancy nevertheless ushered in the spy novel of the 21st century. Blacks, women, the disabled, and immigrants now play heroic roles (granted, still without any nuance or subtlety) and the technology is updated for modern verisimilitude.

In true postmodern fashion, Forrest DeVoe, Jr. takes what he likes and leaves the rest. Jack Mallory is macho, but he's not a pig about it, even forcing himself to admit to Laura's superior talents in hand-to-hand combat. Into the Volcano mixes the assassination thriller with the Cold War setting of the defection thriller and the traitorship of the mob hunt.

The book's saving grace is decent writing that doesn't have its eyes on the big screen. In the era of Dan Brown and Harlan Coben, whose books read like badly-written screenplays, DeVoe spares us the characters who have ridiculously mundane and pathetically humorous one-liners running through their heads in the midst of a crisis.

Into the Volcano is fairly lukewarm and forgettable, but, for fans of the genre, it's a fun romp through the history of the spy novel.

Hired by the Consultancy, Van Vliet is in Istanbul where he believes that the Club Europa is being built as a cover for something else. Before he informs Gray, the head of the Consultancy, a profit-making black-ops organization, he is killed in his shower by a head that emits flame instead of water. It is 1962 and the cold war is fought by the Consultancy who the CIA hires to find out what is going on in Istanbul.

Gray sends his two best operatives, Jack Mallory and Laura Morse to Istanbul where they learn that their old nemesis Anton Rauth hired mercenaries to kill them. Still alive, the duo find an earth digging machine in the cellar of the Club used to construct a tunnel into the Turks equivalent of Ft. Knox. Jack and Laura are sent to the volcanic island of He' Konau where Rauth has his base of operations inside the volcano. There assignment is to gather intelligence but they are caught snooping and only a miracle will save their lives and that of millions of people when Anton unleashes his master weapon.

No doubt about it, the team of Mallory and Morse are the equal of 007 and other spy heroes that graced the pages of the spy thrillers of the 1960's. There is action, action and more action but like James Bond there is much tongue in cheek humor that lessens the tensions when it threatens to become overwhelming. Forest DeVoe Jr. has written an excellent spy drama and one can only hope he writes more starring the intrepid protagonists Mallory and Morse.

Harriet Klausner