Word: follett
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...REBECCA by Ken Follett; Morrow 381 pages...
...Fast is my normal speed," says Ken Follett, 31, who mastered his tempo at a Fleet Street typewriter. Fast is also the pace of the annual Follett bestseller. His latest thriller, The Key to Rebecca, streaks through the sands of plot with all the surprising velocity of one of General Erwin Rommel's panzer divisions in the North African desert-which happens to be where much of the novel takes place...
...Rommel is the Desert Fox, Alex-Achmed becomes the Cairo Rat. Like Henry Faber, the Nazi spy in Follett's Eye of the Needle, Alex proves to be a demmed elusive character. With typical guile, he manages to extract the precise details of every Allied position and plan from the briefcase of an alcoholic British headquarters officer while the silly sod makes love to a kinky belly dancer named Sonja. While Sonja wriggles, Alex scribbles, relaying this trove of vital and invaluable information to Rommel from a houseboat on the Nile, using a wireless code based on Daphne...
...English officer charged with tracking down Wolff is Major William Vandam, a non-U widower in military intelligence. Vandam's strategy starts with a well-baited hooker. Her name is Elene Fontana (nee Abigail Asnani), a 23-year-old Jewish courtesan who-after the characteristic Follett sexual intermezzos-rises quickly to become the star of the Wolff hunt. One of Vandam's problems is his toffee-nosed superior, Lieut. Colonel Reggie Bogge, who spends most of his time polishing a precious cricket ball and refusing to accept his subordinate's theory of the spy's existence...
...Billy. He guns a BSA 350 motorcycle through the clotted streets of Cairo and chases his adversary in one memorable scene worthy of a Steve McQueen cop-pursuit flick. He also drinks a lot of gin. Humiliated and frustrated in his confrontations with the Egyptian Nazi sympathizers, he presents Follett's simple but valid editorial: "Yes. We're not very admirable, especially in our colonies, but the Nazis are worse . . . It is worth fighting. In England decency is making slow progress; in Germany it's taking a big step backward. Think about the people you love...