Book Review : Pair of Knights in Shining Journalism
Loaded Questions by Philip Loraine (St. Martin’s Press: $11.95)
Give or take an old school tie, a brief stint at Cambridge and a family seat in Wiltshire, Tom Wood could have been cloned from half a team of famous American investigative journalists. His partner is David Cameron, an electrician’s son from a provincial town, a product of the local grammar school who was graduated from a minor university with a first-class degree in history.
Having made a name for themselves exposing the Vatican Bank Scandal, these two knights of the fourth estate--and heroes of Philip Loraine’s new political thriller--are in the market for another equally sensational story. Though an all-out attack on airline price fixing sounds promising, Wood and Cameron would prefer something more glamorous.
While nursing a hangover in the Garrick Club, Wood is approached by an exceedingly well-tailored man who introduces himself as John Merrion of East-West Airspace, just the sort of highly placed informant Wood has been hoping to find.
After a desultory chat about strikes, hijackers and the complex economics of air travel, Merrion casually suggests that terrorism might make more thrilling reading than rigged excursion fares to Majorca. “I met a terrorist once,” Merrion says. “Sat next to him on one of our own planes.” And not just a terrorist, but the most newsworthy variety; Libyan, the chief suspect in the assassination of Isaac Erter, a saintly Israeli pacifist, a man who crusaded for Arab-Israeli understanding.
The instant his chance acquaintance leaves him, Wood rushes to his partner’s house, determined to persuade Cameron that solving the five-year-old mystery of Erter’s death should be their next project. Cameron is skeptical, but after a heated discussion in which various intriguing possibilities are explored, his interest is aroused. Erter might have been killed by a member of the military elite in his own country, who regarded his plan to return disputed Arab territory as nothing less than seditious, or more likely still, been murdered by Arab extremists who rashly removed the only Israeli friend they ever had, but either way, there’s a highly charged story in the Erter case, complicated by the fact that Erter had also put the United States in an uncomfortable position.
Difficult Decisions
After supporting an increasingly hawkish Israeli administration for decades, the United States could hardly switch allegiance to an 86-year-old dreamer without risking serious repercussions, but neither could the United States ignore a man whom millions regarded as a savior. The “Erter Initiative” had gained advocates all over the world. After months of foot-dragging, the American President tardily decided to back Isaac Erter, and an Arab-Israeli conference was convened in Rome to settle the question of a Palestinian homeland. The talks were barely under way when Erter was shot by persons unknown, thus ending hopes, dreams and the American dilemma in an instant. After a perfunctory inquiry, the Erter case vanished from the media as if it had never been, and matters returned to the status quo before Erter, a state of affairs in which there were few inconvenient ambiguities.
This potentially explosive situation is made to order for the talents of Wood and Cameron, whose efficient research soon turns up the name of Steve Lathan, an American working in France. Lathan was briefly mentioned in the reports of Erter’s assassinations as “an American who was off-duty at the time.” With the help of a useful contact at the U.S. Embassy, the reporters learn that Lathan had belonged to a subsection of the CIA concerned with security, and had not only been present at the conference but had been seriously injured in an attempt to save Erter’s life. After recovering from his wounds, Lathan had simultaneously acquired an English wife and lost his job.
The ensuing events are everything readers have learned to expect from Loraine’s sophisticated psychological mysteries. Joined by Lathan, the newly constituted trio set off for Paris, where sinister omens accumulate, and then for Jerusalem, where the perils of their mission increase exponentially. By the end of “Loaded Questions,” Wood and Cameron are rich, famous and deep into a book about their adventures.
