Word: astronautical
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...narrator, a retired French-Canadian astronaut named John, relates the details of an undercover investigation into the mysterious deaths of eleven tourists visiting a health spa in Naples. As with most writers of detective stories, Lem never lays all his cards on the table; the reader only gradually learns that the victims were all middle-aged foreigners, balding and of athletic build. (Is it by chance too that the picture of Lem on the book's back cover matches this description?) In addition, the men were wealthy, single, and had been receiving treatments for rheumatism at the Vittorini mineral baths...
John has been chosen for the role of decoy because of his physical resemblance to the victims and his rigorous preparation for the job. The life of an astronaut, he claims, is one not of glamor, but of "boring and montonous routine," thus qualifying him for a mission in which his task is to reproduce Adams's exact schedule of daily activities, going so far as to wear the dead man's clothing, drive his car and occupy the same hotel room. John is under 24-hour surveillance by a team of six scientists who observe him through binolculars...
...protagonist is both a product of the scientific community and an outcast from it; his cynicism seems to stem from wounded pride after he was relegated to the position of back-up astronaut. In modern technology, where remote-control computers are "the highest order, the symbol of our civilization," John says facetiously, there is no room for human failings: acute hay fever forced his demotion when a space mission unexpectedly discovered vegetation on Mars. Rather than remain a member of the backup crew, he quit, joining the undercover investigation in the hope that it would satisfy his attraction to risk...
...celebrity fishing tournament, a Dallas businessman winking over hiscoke spoon the while his Mercedes is stopped at a traffic light. And Gent tries mightily to give the book some vision, tying his Neiman-Marcus set into a cocaine smuggling ring of heroic proportions, furnishing it with an ex-astronaut lackey who becomes the unwitting victim of his employer's pesticide...
...created Ford's "Better idea" and "Ford wants to be your car company" slogans, along with the famous "Sign of the cat" for Lincoln-Mercury. The theme at Chrysler will be engineering, and Astronaut Neil Armstrong will apparently remain as the corporate spokesman. Whether K&E will be able to improve the fading Chrysler quality image is a major question. Says a Detroit ad agency chief: "Iacocca could not quickly change the company's cars, so he changed what he could-the advertising...