Publisher's Synopsis
A circus performer turned superspy is caught up in a Cold War web of conspiracy and death when the body of a murdered CIA agent is discovered in a Hawaiian marine park. By any definition, Ringling Wallenda Grove is an extraordinary man. The son of expatriate Russian former circus owners, he mastered the arts of acrobatics, animal training, and magic at a young age; distinguished himself as an officer in World War II; and went on to amass a fortune of several million dollars before going into semiretirement. But there is another side to this man that few know about. R. W. Grove is a master spy, having honed his trade as a postwar intelligence agent with the OSS. Now the murder of a company agent, whose body was found floating among the aquatic animals in Honolulu's popular Sea Life Park, is pulling Grove back into the game. A deadly international conspiracy is afoot, involving the nation's most bitter and dangerous enemies, and it centers on a covert CIA operation code-named Zed-an undertaking so secretive that even the president can know nothing about it. Renowned for his provocative, stunningly realized speculative fiction, Philip Wylie joined the ranks of John le Carré, Len Deighton, Robert Ludlum, and other masters of the espionage thriller when he first published The Spy Who Spoke Porpoise. Brimming with action, intrigue, and ingenious twists and turns, the novel brilliantly captures the fears, anxieties, paranoia, and rampant conspiracies that hallmarked the Cold War era.
