Sweepers

People who are important to Admiral Tag Sherman are dying under mysterious circumstances, leaving him large amounts of money. When a homicide detective starts asking embarrassing questions, Naval Commander Karen Lawrence is asked to investigate. Sherman suspects that he is being set up by an old enemy, a man he left behind in the swamps of Vietnam, formally MIA but really one of the nastiest of the rogue CIA "sweepers"?killers whose job is to get rid of other killers. Lawrence's investigation is complicated by naval politics, and just when she thinks she understands what's going on, yet another layer of treachery is revealed. What the book lacks in clarity it makes up for in suspense, danger, and a disturbing vision of the CIA run amok. Deutermann (Official Privilege, St. Martin's, 1995) has written a fine page-turner for popular collections.?Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, Iowa Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. ### From Booklist A skeleton from the Vietnam closet upsets the career ascent of several posterior-covering admirals. The skeleton is a secret assassin named Galantz, sore at being abandoned in the Mekong Delta by a navy lieutenant. Now an admiral, Tag Sherman becomes the object of the assassin's vengeance. Two naval people, male and female, investigate the case, which arises when two of Sherman's friends die suddenly. Sherman blames that old assassin, a point debated continuously by the investigators. But readers, through the magic of authorial omniscience, eavesdrop on Sherman's superiors in the Pentagon and discover that Sherman is probably truthful; but "those people up the river" (the CIA) have lost control of their assassin. However, those people have deep-cover "sweepers" who clean up such embarrassments, creating the action of an unknown sweeper chasing the investigators who are chasing Galantz. Despite their scrapes with danger, the investigators are flat characters, leaving plausible portrayals of Pentagon office politics as this mystery's primary asset. *Gilbert Taylor*