Shattered Eye

In this third book in the November Man series, author Bill Granger takes the reader to Paris,France for a story of lost love and betrayel. R Section agent William Manning was sent to Paris to seduce a young leftist woman in 1968 in order to learn about the doings of the radical neo-communist French left. There's only one problem, Manning falls in love with the woman and is wracked with guilt when he must inevitably betray her. Now 15 years later there is unuasually alarming data being put forth by the Agencys Supercomputer known as Tinkertoy about troop movements behind the Iron Curtain under the cover of Soviet wargames. When a soviet agent is murdered in England and also a American agent goes missing, there is something wrong. When information surfaces at R Section that the same French woman (I can't remember the characters name) appears to somehow be involved, Manning is sent back to Paris to "accidentally" meet up with her and reestablish his relationship after not seeing her for 15 years. From that point the story starts to pick up a bit. Series anti-hero Deveroux does not appear in the story until page 100, when he is sent to Paris to find out what is going on. Needless to say, a vast conspiracy of traitorous behavior by French officials and a terrorist cell are what Deveroux is up against. I dont want to spoil the ending so I'll just say that Deveroux is at his ruthless best. I gave this one 4 stars instead of 5 because I felt the first half of the story dragged a little. It was ahead of its time in the fact that complete reliance on computers is not always a good thing.I think Deveroux is (was)the most interesting character in spy fiction during that time.