From a book review by Aldrich Ames of Sleeper Spy, an espionage novel published by columnist William Safire, in the November 29, 1995 issue of The Hill, a Washington, D.C., weekly. Ames is serving a life sentence for passing secrets to the Soviet Union while working for the CIA.

Bill Safire told USA Today last summer that his main reason for writing Sleeper Spy was to have a good time. Since the preposterous plot is not meant to be taken seriously, even by the characters who struggle in its contradictory meshes, Safire concentrates his considerable energies on stuffing their mouths with knowing references to journalism, high finance, the CIA, the KGB, and Russia.

One hinge of the plot involves the workings of presidential covert-action findings—not a very mysterious process but one that Safire is determined to get wrong. He also picked up from somewhere the odd idea that Alexsandr Shelpin (a party hack from the Khrushchev era who once headed the KGB) was the last and greatest of the Soviet spy masters, and he drapes a lot of his plot around this notion.

Safire uses heavy-duty cardboard for his characters; they all sound alike, busily and knowingly one-upping each other, passing on inside information, and making inane and transparent deals with one another. Safire has a tin ear for dialogue and makes his characters bound to their feet, hearts sinking, as their lives hang by a thread—luckily, for most of them, not a slender one. His ignorance might serve an op-ed man well, but it's of no help to a novelist.

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