Friends, Russians, and Countrymen — Hampton Howard

The United States intelligence agents who are portrayed in ''Friends, Russians, and Countrymen'' are too eccentric, too literate and too wisecracking actually to work for the American Government, but this is the only unpersuasive element in an otherwise colorful and fast-moving thriller. ''Soviet equity'' - that is, a spy - has been found in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, working out of New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematics. But rather than capture him, the C.I.A. initiates an operation to feed him disinformation. Ed Stuarti, a flamboyant 70-year-old intelligence veteran who played a bit part in Mr. Howard's previous novel, ''War Toys,'' runs this baroque con game from his West 13th Street safe house. Among the members of his cast are Tom Matthews, an anguished, burned-out agent; Harold-Who-Does-the-Disgusting-Things, a contract worker who, for reasons of national security, was once flown to Vienna to throw up on a mailman; and scores of F.B.I. agents dressed as Hasidim and basketball players so as to look plausibly New Yorkish. A modern spy, Stuarti is fully aware of the statutory prohibition against conducting C.I.A. operations in Greenwich Village, and he employs as much forethought duping Congressional oversight committees as he does the Russians. Hampton Howard writes convincing, jargon-rich spy dialogue, as well as archly elliptical descriptions. The novel concludes with a surprising revelation about the target of Stuarti's deception, a plot twist that may give pause to readers concerned about C.I.A. involvement in political affairs. -- New York Times