Story of Henri Tod (Blackford Oakes Series) by William F. Buckley, Jr.

From the Publisher

President John F. Kennedy has been in office less than a year, and the Berlin Wall is about to slam shut the last escape route out of Communist Eastern Europe. Uncertain about the Soviets' intentions, Kennedy sends Blackford Oakes into the chaos of East Berlin to plumb the depths of the crisis. Oakes' contact in Henri Tod, a leader of a group of German dissidents who has a price on his head and an ingenious plan that might just save the West from Eastern Bloc domination. When Tod mysteriously vanishes, Oakes locks horns with the ultimate opponent, East German's unscrupulous party boss Walter Ulbricht, in a story created by William F. Buckley Jr., one of the foremost political thinkers and master storytellers of our time. Who will win this cloak-and-dagger chess game?

When first published, The Story of Henri Tod was a Literary Guild Dual Main Selection.

Library Journal

Published in 1982 and 1984, respectively, these are two of Buckley's popular Blackie Oakes spy thrillers. They feature the usual U.S./Soviet Cold War cloak-and-dagger action and provide "flawless entertainment" (LJ 3/1/84).

Anatole Broyard

The best part of ''The Story of Henri Tod,'' William Buckley's fifth suspense novel, is his portrait of former President John F. Kennedy. His rendering of Nikita Khrushchev is quite good too, and this tempts me to suggest that Mr. Buckley seems most at home when he projects himself into the minds of heads of state....When his subject is less exalted, he appears to lose interest or become inattentive. While his wit is first-rate, his humor is sometimes collegiate. And if his digressions on politics are brilliant, his plotting can be pedestrian....The trouble is, Mr. Buckley in being extraordinary, invites more than ordinary comment. -- New York Times

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