SECRET HONOR

Griffin’s third entry in a series begun with Honor Bound (1993) and Blood and Honor (1997), military thrillers that rang bells on the bestseller lists—as will Secret Honor. The first installment led with leatherneck fighter pilot Cletus Howell Frade being posted in the fall of 1942 to OSS undercover duty in neutral Argentina, where U-boats refueled in coastal waters. Argentina- born, Texas-resident, fluent-in-Spanish Cletus, heir to an oil fortune, returned in Blood and Honor to trip up Nazis without damaging diplomatic ties. These two previous titles were notable for their delicious descriptions of Argentine high society (including Clete’s impending marriage to the pregnant Dorotea, a high-born senorita whose virginity he despoiled) and sensibly bolted-down melodrama. Secret Honor maintains this pleasing formula, in this case by turning on an attempt to assassinate Hitler. The German general who planned the failed coup and his son, code-named “Galahad,” however, are sniffed out by the SS and Abwehr in Germany and Argentina. Meanwhile, Clete himself, whose father was murdered by the Germans, is on the outs with OSS and must work under the rose. Griffin’s strong eye for detail and rousing ability to keep real earth under his hero’s heels give surprising lift to what otherwise might seem (like some early WWII movie set in Casablanca) dull stuff. After all, Cletus and Dorotea will always have Buenos Aires.