Book excerpt: An elegant, intricate mystery, which is seldom what it seems to be. During the 1960's, the young Humboldt S. Prior, nominally a computer specialist, but actually an involuntary agent of a little-known US intelligence service, is projected into Latin America to contact a long-concealed war criminal, who is a needed expert on neurological warfare. There Prior becomes entangled in a web of vengeance, treachery, and repeated murders. Fearful enemies and weapons, each more deadly then the last, menace Prior as he strives to accomplish his mission and live to tell of it. North and South Americans, Nazis, Israelis, and German aristocrats surround Prior in deceit and savage conflict. To survive and succeed he must select from the best of these competing forces, and align himself with them, and in doing so find success and the potential of great happiness and a new future. The story ends with a final jolt of uncertainty and mystery.