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With painful slowness, the authorities finally establish that Helen has been abductedby the Russians but when Nat finally makes contact with her, at a computer fair in Berlin, he discovers that she has been brainwashed into a Communist way of thinking. Subsequent events only prolong Nat’s nightmare.
A memorable cast of characters includes Helen’s unscrupulous sister, Amber, who exploits her sister’s disappearance for her own ends; their bluntly spoken capitalist father, Josh Crawley, and the wily but good-natured investigator Carlton Lomax who persists in unravelling the case when everyone else deserts Nat.
The author is as successful at evoking the bleakness of life in Soviet Russia as he is at describing the racier side of Nat s escapades, drawing us skillfully into his dilemmas.
Almost Scarlet is full of excitement and incident and the unexpected twists in the plot are guaranteed to absorb the reader until the very last page.
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