12 Drummers Drumming

August 3, 1998
An overambitious attempt to meld a post-Cold War spy thriller and a star-crossed romance, Deverell's debut introduces us to Kathryn "Casey" Collins, a foreign service officer who enjoys a blissful--if hardly predictable or safe--relationship with Stefan Krajewski, a former infiltrator of the Polish secret police who's long worked undercover for Danish intelligence. When, on the anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing, a flight Stefan may have taken explodes over the Atlantic, Casey doesn't know if her lover is dead or in hiding and goes to Denmark to investigate. Her snooping attracts the notice of the FBI and makes Casey herself a suspect in the bombing. Casey is forced to flee the country; when Stefan shows up alive, with an attractive female partner by his side, Casey must question how well she really knows her lover--even as she attempts to prove her innocence to the FBI by reeling in Kruger, a villainous, high-level former East German intelligence official. Deverell sets a number of promising story lines in motion: Stefan's shady background and mysterious parentage; Casey's status as a fugitive unsure who she can trust; and the suspense surrounding Kruger's nefarious schemes. It is disappointing that she doesn't linger long enough on any of these plot strands to generate compelling interest in them or in her characters. Agent, Nancy Yost.