Dunn's Conundrum

"Stan Lee" (born Stanley Martin Lieber) is unrelated to the advertising executive Stanley R. Lee, who wrote the novels Dunn's Conundrum (1985) and The God Project (1990) under the name "Stan Lee". In 1984 Harper & Row published Lee's political thriller "Dunn's Conundrum" which sold respectably well and was also optioned as a film property. In 1990 Grove / Atlantic published another political thriller by Lee titled "The God Project" that featured an advertising man with unique skills who is recruited by the President of the United States to work on a special mission (shades of DDB in '64?). According to Lee's widow, Bernice Lee, the author was working on a non-fiction novel about the military when he died after falling in their apartment in 1997. It was supposedly also scripted as a movie with Chevy Chase called "The Garbageman" ... The Chines translator is the best bit.

This is one of my favorite thrillers. It is in the Robert Ludlum style but with a sence of humor rarely seen in spy thrillers. A geat read that will not disapoint. What will disapoint is the Stan Lee has not followed up with another book chosing to make a fortune writing comic books.

This is one of the most intelligently written thrillers I've read in ages. The action is exciting, the techno-talk satisfying and not overdone, and the general writing and play of mind mean you don't have to put your own wits entirely to sleep to enjoy the book, as you do with many thrillers. True, it gets a touch preachy towards the end, but only a little. The book is o.p. but worth looking for!