Description for THE NAKED RUNNER by Francis Clifford: Here, without question, is the finest achievement yet of a brilliant storyteller whose previous novels have already won him an international reputation. Masterfully plotted and unfailing in narrative sweep, THE NAKED RUNNER firmly establishes Francis Clifford in the front rank of contemporary novelists of suspense. Set mainly in Lipzig, the story tells how Sam Laker, civilian, but a veteran of World War II intelligence, reluctantly agrees to act as temporary unpaid agent for the West during a private business trip to East Germany. He is assured that it will be a routine mission involving no risk. But in the course of a few days he is caught in the clutches of an organization of deadly efficiency and ruthlessness that turns him from a successful, fatherly English businessman into a cold and paranoiac killer. The appalling dilemma that Lakes is drawn into produces an astonishing sequence of events in Easy Germany and Copenhagen. Along with a wartime comrade names Karen, who he has never stopped loving, and his teen-age son Patrick, he is engulfed by a drama which illuminates and comments on the things men will do to each other when they are sure enough of the cause they serve. For sheer storytelling THE NAKED RUNNER is a book that will long be remembered; as a work that mirrors the anxious times in which we live it is unforgettable.
