By Patrick Anderson
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, July 26, 1998; Page X06

BALANCE OF POWER

By James W. Huston

Morrow. 368 pp. $25

James W. Huston's military thriller hits the ground running, as a gang of Indonesian terrorists hijack an American cargo ship in Jakarta, murder 25 Americans and disappear, later to demand that the United States get out of Indonesia. Back in Washington, President Edward Manchester announces that he will not let Americans be sucked into a "cycle of violence," and will instead count on Indonesian officials to punish the terrorists rather than order a military response. This infuriates Speaker of the House John Stanbridge, who was a Vietnam war hero back when the president was a peacenik. Stanbridge comes up with a plan to rescue the nation's honor: The Constitution gives Congress the power to "grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal," and Congress can use this power to order the Navy to go after the terrorists and bypass the commander-in-chief. Congress approves the Letter of Marque over a presidential veto and soon the constitutional issue is headed for the Supreme Court, even as the speaker threatens to impeach the president for being a pacifist. Meanwhile, out in the Pacific, one Navy battle group, obeying the Letter of Marque, is pursuing the terrorists, while another, on orders from the president, is steaming south from the Philippines to intercept it.

Far-fetched? You bet. But well-told, and at a certain point I settled back and enjoyed the ride. Huston is an ex-Navy pilot turned lawyer and writer, and he handles both battle scenes and courtroom confrontations with skill. The pace is fast and the suspense is gripping as his story careens toward a guns-blazing, here-come-the-Marines climax. If you like Tom Clancy, you'll love Balance of Power. Indeed, if you like Tom Clancy, Huston is a good step up.

LADY GOLD

By Angela Amato and Joe Sharkey

St. Martin's. 354 pp. $23.95

Before she became a lawyer and writer, Angela Amato was a New York City detective and her first novel has a lot to say, much of it caustic, about New York's finest. With the help of journalist Joe Sharkey, she spins a readable tale of a woman detective who infiltrates the Mafia even as she becomes increasingly disillusioned with the department she serves.

Gerry Conte is an idealistic Italian-American detective who goes to law school at night and lives with another detective, a slob named Kevin, who she's been too busy to dump. Then comes a special assignment with an organized crime unit. The unit has trumped up charges against a beautiful but dumb young Mafia soldier named Eugene Rossi, who -- rather than go to prison -- has agreed to inform on his uncle, a mob underboss named Tony Rossi. Our heroine's job is to babysit Eugene, be his date when he goes out on the town and eventually cultivate the uncle and tape their conversations.

Complications ensue when she becomes rather fond of Eugene, who's a danger mainly to himself. She begins to question the department's plan to use him against his uncle, then boot him out onto the street where he'll soon be dead. She's angry about sexism in the force and the unspoken assumption that even honest Italian-Americans (like herself) are "mobbed up." She is outraged by the thousands of dollars spent on wining and dining mobsters in an ill-conceived operation. Ultimately, Amato tells us more about the police department than about the Mafia, but her portraits have the ring of truth. Her final scene, which resolves Gerry's will-she-or-won't-she flirtation, is just right.

THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT

By Jeffrey Archer

HarperCollins. 359 pp. $26

As I write this, Jeffrey Archer's latest, The Eleventh Commandment, is already on the bestseller lists, so my warning may come too late to save you from this piece of nonsense. If not, caveat emptor.

Archer's hero, Connor Fitzgerald, is both the CIA's most deadly assassin and a saint. We know he's an assassin because we see him kill someone in the opening chapter. We know he's a saint because he loves his wife and daughter, won a Congressional Medal of Honor in Vietnam, and is adored by all. The fact that he kills people does not detract from his saintliness, because he only kills very bad people whom the president of the United States has told him to kill.

His troubles begin when the president tells him to go kill a very bad man who is about to be elected president of Russia. At least, he thinks the president told him that. Actually, an evil, female FBI director (a kind of J. Edgar Hoover in skirts, if that's not redundant) has tricked him with snippets of presidential speeches that have been rearranged into a rather stilted presidential phone call that our saintly assassin, who's not real quick, takes to be the real McCoy.

So our alert assassin is off to Russia, pretending to be a journalist, and trailed about by his best friend, whom he never notices. One howler follows another in this ill-conceived chain of events. My favorite was when the deputy director of the CIA, wanting a secret meeting with his top assassin, meets him on a park bench in Lafayette Square! Jeffrey Archer is both a bestselling novelist and a leading figure in Britain's Conservative Party. One assumes he is an intelligent and sophisticated man. Why he is writing claptrap like this is anyone's guess.

DEAD EVEN

By Brad Meltzer

Rob Weisbach/Morrow. 401 pp. $25

Sara and Jared Tate, wife and husband, are young New York lawyers. Sara has been hired as an assistant district attorney and her first assignment is to prosecute a routine burglary that proves to be not at all routine. The plot twist comes when hubby Jared is hired to defend the burglar. The bad guys warn each of them that if they don't win the case their beloved spouse will be killed. Do they report this fiendish plot to the authorities? Do they even tell each other? Of course not. If they did, there'd be no novel. So they blunder on, each begging the other to quit the case, their marriage in tatters, as the villains stalk them, beat them, bug their bedroom, murder their witnesses and even push Sara's dear old Gramps down a flight of stairs. The plot is ludicrous and its telling is interminable.

Author Meltzer is a young lawyer (married to another lawyer) who scored a success last year with his first novel, The Tenth Justice. One can only hope that next time out, he applies his writing skills and legal knowledge to a more plausible story. This one's a disaster.

THE OVERSEER

By Jonathan Rabb

Crown. 401 pp. $25

This is by far the most interesting of the five novels under review. It too is a far-fetched tale, concerning a plot to overthrow the U.S. government, but so intelligent and skillful is the telling that one gladly suspends disbelief. Four old men have been plotting a neofascist takeover of the country for decades. Since the 1960s they have operated secret schools at which young people are taught to hate, kill and, if necessary, die to further the scheme. Now this army is poised for a bombing and assassination campaign that will topple the government and put one of their own in the White House.

Who will save the Republic? That honor falls to Sarah Trent, a beautiful and lethal operative with a supersecret agency attached to the State Department. Sarah turns for help to Alexander Jaspers, a young political theorist at Columbia University, because he has written about the legendary 16th-century essay, "On Supremacy," that serves as a blueprint for the conspirators. Sarah and Xander, as he's known, search for a copy of the essay in Italy, amid many dangers, then return to the United States to confront the villains.

Author Rabb, himself a political theorist at Columbia, unleashes dazzling plot twists and edge-of-the-chair confrontations as his tale rushes toward its big-bang ending. At times, the novel recalls Richard Condon and Lawrence Sanders at their most endearingly paranoid. There are desperate battles on speeding trains that cry out for Alfred Hitchcock interpretations. At another level, Rabb seems to be warning that we could be in big trouble if the kind of crazies who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City ever obtained serious, disciplined leadership. This is a highly sophisticated and diverting thriller, a superior entertainment. Put it in your beach bag.

Patrick Anderson is the author of nine novels which include "The President's Mistress" and "Lords of the Earth."