In this award-winning novel, Lathen resorts to a topical issue in choosing as her crime the theft of a $985,000 check the Russians tender to pay for American wheat. The action is motivated by the thaw in U.S.-Soviet relations during the Khrushchev regime. Although this novel was written in 1967, it has ironically remained topical given the embargoes of the 1970s and the continual U.S.-Soviet tensions of the 1980s. International relations inevitably become involved in the solution to the crime.

Suspects include both Soviets and Americans. Thus the investigation must proceed with diplomatic tact.

Various bureaucracies are held up for ridicule in this work. The opening chapter contains excerpts from several newspapers from around the globe demonstrating the slant each puts on the thaw in the U.S.-Soviet affairs. In the course of the investigation, the F.B.I., the State Department, the...