Maze

While the CIA is doing its research into psychic powers - aided in their experiments by a woman who has the uncanny ability to locate the co-ordinates of Soviet submarines - the Russians have an altogether bigger and more sinister project in mind: developing a device that uses electromagnetic waves to trigger responses in the brains of unsuspecting victims. In the most deadly and secret struggle of the new cold war, the Russians set their sights on the US President and attempt to manipulate fanatical Islamic terrorists to play a role in their ambitious scheme. Only one man can stop them and avert a tragedy of terrifying proportions - CIA officer Art Bennington.

FROM New York Daily News, by Bill Bell
Pay attention, class, for this is a thriller about magnetoencephalography, which is (A) a Wales train stop or (B) the science of recording magnetic fields of the brain.

B, you say?

Ah, then you are ready to pick up "MAZE," a most complicated brain science thriller by Larry Collins (Simon & Schuster, $19.95), whose previous works, as co-auther, landed him on the best-seller lists with "O Jerusalem," ''Or I'll Dress You in Mourning" and "Is Paris Burning?"

This one has scraps and bits of everything - Soviet sleepers in Washington, terrorists in Beirut, plotters at the Kremlin, uprisings by Russian ethnics and extrasensory perception. Plus, above all, a plot to provoke the U.S. president into doing something so rash that it would shift the balance of world power.

To drive the president bonkers, the Kremlin baddies need access to the data recorded on a - here we go again - magnetoencephalograph used when he took his physical at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

The president flies into a rage (bad political news while he is undergoing the exam) and a clever Russian female scientist has discovered a way to provoke his rage on command - with an electromagnetic signal.

Soon a hotshot Soviet agent has sneaked into Washington to steal a computer disc containing the data. He does, with the help of a long-time sleeper who has, incidentally, just slept with our CIA hero.

Now, the bad Russkies can bombard the White House with the electromagnetic signals that release the chemicals that trigger the chief executive's rage. OK so far? Plus, they organize a terrorist bombing of a high school dance at a West German military base, cleverly arranged to look like the work of the ayatollah.

The president orders a White House crisis meeting to deal with the attack, and zap! just like that, the president goes ape. Soon, he is ordering a nuclear strike on the ayatollah.

Now our hero, who has a background in psychic studies, solves the mystery and before you can say magnetoencephalography, foils the plot.

It's all very lively and exotic. It and a tube of sunblock should make for a nice weekend at the beach.

From Publishers Weekly
"...uncanny command of the inner workings of the international intelligence apparatus.... The action begins with the KGB's murder of a New York psychic with a flair for locating the coordinates of Soviet submarines. She had been helpful in CIA mind experiments, but the Russians are onto something even better: a device that uses electromagnetic waves to trigger responses in the brains of unsuspecting people at a distance. The KGB intends to use this magneto-encephalogram to zap the U.S. president during a crisis. First, Arab terrorists controlled by Moscow blow up a U.S. Army-run high school in Germany, killing many teenagers. Then the zapping of the president begins, and our enraged, mentally unhinged Chief Executive gives the order to nuke Iran in retaliation. A subplot involving rebellious Moslem nationalists within the U.S.S.R. provides an unusual perspective on internal pressures facing Kremlin and KGB bureaucrats. Collins gives his spies and politicos some psychological depth.


Genre: Thriller