Windmills of the Gods » (Reprint)

Sidney Sheldon's remarkable career as a novelist began when he was 50 years old, after he had already been a success in film and television. Perhaps it was his sensibility for screen entertainment that made him so readily able to produce his addictive novels of love and suspense.

She's on the glinting edge of East-West confrontation, a beautiful and accomplished scholar who has suddenly become our newest ambassador to an Iron Curtain country, a woman who is about to dramatically change the course of world events — if she lives. For Mary Ashley has been marked for death by the world's most proficient and mysterious assassin, and plunged into a nightmare of espionage, kidnapping, and terror. Here, only two people — both powerfully attractive and ultimately enigmatic men — can offer her help. And one of them wants to kill her.

Publishers Weekly

The latest novel by the veteran author ( If Tomorrow Comes, etc.) is a fast-paced thriller. Upon taking office, idealistic President Paul Ellison inaugurates the ``people-to-people'' program, intended to establish America's ties with Iron Curtain countries. Instead of naming an experienced diplomat as ambassador to Romania, Ellison selects wholesome Mary Ashley, instructor of Eastern European political science at Kansas State University. Mary initially declines the post, but after her husband dies in a suspicious car crash, she warily accepts Ellison's offer in an attempt to quell her overwhelming grief. Unwittingly, Mary has placed herself in peril, for a sinister covert organization of right- and left-wing tycoons and politicians called Patriots for Freedom intends to abort Ellison's project by lethal means. To kill Mary in Romania, these code-named extremiststheir identities aren't divulged until the novel concludeshire Angel, a terrorist infamous for for barbarity, skill, and dedication. Sheldon's characterizations are slick but involving, and the action escalates to an electrifying final scene. Adding depth are descriptions of harsh Romanian life, the agony of widowhood and the foreign service initiation process. (February 10)