Gabbay,
Tom. The Berlin Conspiracy. Morrow. January 2006. c.288p. ISBN
0-06-078785-6. $24.95. Fiction.
Set in June 1963 during President
John F. Kennedy’s
visit to Berlin, Gabbay’s
debut is a Cold War thriller with an assassination plot that
mimics Lee Harvey Oswald’s successful attempt in Dallas.
Jack Teller and his younger brother, Josef, were orphaned at
an early age. While Josef stayed in Germany, Jack moved
to America, where he later did contract
work for the CIA. Now retired and living in Florida, receives
a call from his mentor, Sam Clay of covert operations, who
gives him orders to take off for Berlin.
It seems an East German colonel in the Ministry for State Security
has information he will divulge only to Jack. Tough
guy Jack, whose story is narrated in noirish first person,
doesn’t
know whom to trust when the colonel tells him about an assassination
plot concocted by men within the U.S. government using a
Soviet-trained assassin as the fall guy. Complications ensue
until Jack saves the world from nuclear war. A tired plot saved
by a few interesting characters; recommended only for larger
popular fiction collections.