Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Another tremendous blast from the out-of-print past by the impeccable folk at Felony & Mayhem is Carolyn Hougan’s shamefully neglected 1989 thriller THE ROMEO FLAG – a veritable Faberge egg (there’s a real one at the heart of the plot) full of treasures and delights that begins in Shanghai just as the Japanese are invading; sweeps along a tangled trail through Moscow and the upper reaches of the CIA; and winds up in the Maine home of an apparently perfectly ordinary teacher named Nicola Ward with a history that just won’t quit.