Topaz, Uris B +

                                         Leon Uris was one of the wonderful novelists to emerge from the WW2 generation.   He was a poor Jewish boy from Baltimore, who joined the Marines at 17 and went on to write many successful books and screenplays. He is most famous for 'Exodus'.  'Topaz' was a 1967 thriller set against the backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis.  As always, his characters are well drawn, his plotting is intriguing and his historical background information is well researched and accurate.  Here, he provides a very insightful exposition of Franco/American tensions that began during the war and lived on deep into the Cold War.