From Eroica with Love, v2

[cyphomandra]

Volume 2 dumps the teenagers entirely, and instead it's all politics and capitalism; the Apollo statue's miniskirt remains unlifted, and instead we head off to Greece, where Klaus is interested in a Russian spy, and Dorian in a jade statue (naturally, both attached to the same rather useless John Travolta worshipping Greek shipping heir). Agent G is used as a cross-dressing fake sister of the heir, and then there's one of those deftly done high speed car chases along scenic cliff edges, after which Klaus almost displays emotion when Eroica's car ends up plunging over. At about this stage it occurred to me that this is in some ways very similar plotting to Dorothy Dunnett's in her Johnson Johnson series, which are all stripped down action, sudden reversals and camouflage, and it is probably just as well for my attempts at something resembling an early night that these are all still in my house (well. no. Actually, I would much rather have them, but anyway). I think, however, that she would have appreciated the bit where two trucks enter a tunnel, one with spy, one with statue, and on their emergence both the Major and the Earl, hovering overhead (helicopter and blimp) pick up the wrong truck, a fact which none of their subordinates wish to enlighten them on.

There ensues a strategic pause, and then a story in which a very high-level peace conference is coincidentally held at a private house right next to Dorian's rather Germanic-looking (all pointy turrets) castle, where he is entertaining a meeting of international criminals. Unravelling a bomb threat to the conference by a bunch of neo-Nazis (Klaus is highly opposed to these, and has a small fit when one of the US delegates calls him "Nazi" and "Gestapo"; interestingly, what he retaliates with is the fact that his father was in the German tank defence forces, who did not desert the country like the Nazis "when things got tough") requires the Earl to surrender his underwear, and to then steal a vase from a televised conference between what I am pretty sure is President Carter and his Soviet equivalent. Klaus is actually more functional in this, with quite a bit of dry humour (there's a nice bit where, recovering from the explosion together, the Earl asks if Klaus is dead; Klaus says "yes"); Dorian is quite emphatically gay, correcting the Soviets on their files on him when their female agent attempts to seduce him, although the outfits he wears in the chapter heading pieces do make me wonder how on earth he manages to steal anything unobserved.

This volume has a short story add-on, with unrelated characters who all look very very similar to the main story's cast; I remember disliking it intensely and have not bothered to re-read it.