Topaz (novel)

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Topaz is a thriller written by Leon Uris and published in 1967 .

The Cold War era story is about a plot between the Russians and the Cubans and a spy ring with ties to both sides. The focus is on agent André Devereaux, his wife Nicole and their daughter Michèle, who is in love with a journalist.

content

1962. In Copenhagen, the Russian KGB official Boris Kuznetov asks Michael Nordstrom, the head of the NATO secret service ININ, for asylum in the USA. With his wife Olga and daughter Tamara, Kuznetov can defeat. In return, he reveals to the Americans that a French spy ring called "Topas" spies on behalf of Moscow within the SDECE. The French diplomat André Devereaux, an old friend of Nordstrom, who lives in New York and Washington with his wife Nicole and daughter Michèle, is supposed to find out what the Russians are planning to do in Cuba. Family disputes make his actions difficult. Daughter Michèle separates from her simple-minded fiancé Tucker Brown IV and leaves Washington for New York. Wife Nicole accuses André of not caring for Michèle enough. Besides, she has nothing to do with his agent work for Nordstrom.

André travels to Cuba, where his lover Juanita de Cordóba gets him photos of missile transports. With her help and Rico Parra, who is in love with Juanita, André is able to leave Cuba with the evidence that the Russians are stationing missiles in Cuba.

Meanwhile, daughter Michèle defends herself in Paris against the pursuit of her ex-fiancé Tucker. She fell in love with the journalist Francois Picard. Nicole worries, but Michèle can do without a life as a boring philistine. Francois Picard attacks the President of the Republic as an editor on state television as well as in Columns of the Moniteur. André travels to Paris. He cannot talk Michèle out of his marriage to Francois Picard and sets out to unmask the boss of "Topas".

Nicole Devereaux has an affair with the married SDECE man Jacques Granville, an old Resistance companion of Andrés.

Francois Picard charges the President in a recent article. At midnight, Michèle, who now lives with Francois Picard, receives a call asking her to come see her father. Shortly after she left the apartment, four murderers appear and kill Francois.

André takes Michèle to Montrichard, where his wife is supposed to look after the daughter. André learns of the affair with Jacques Granville.

Meanwhile, in Cuba, Rico Parra is murdered by the torturer Munoz. When Munoz tries to torture Juanita too, she swallows a cyanide capsule and dies immediately.

André exposes Jacques Granville as a "Topaz" spy and leaves France. Michèle and Nicole have already traveled to Spain and are waiting for him to flee to South America together. André warns Granville: If something should happen to him, letters would be published that reveal Granville as the head of "Topas".

André also announced that an American writer would write a novel about these events. The title: TOPAS.

filming

In 1969, Alfred Hitchcock directed the film Topaz , which was based on the book. He won an international cast for the fictional characters: André Devereaux: Frederick Stafford , Nicole: Dany Robin , Michèle: Claude Jade , Nordstrom: John Forsythe , Parra: John Vernon , Juanita: Karin Dor , François Picard: Michel Subor , Granville: Michel Piccoli , Jarré: Philippe Noiret , Kuznetov: Per Axel Arosenius .

output

  • Leon Uris: Topas , Roman (translated by Alfred Scholz and Gerhard Vorkamp), Heyne Taschenbuch 902, Munich 1999 (German first edition by Kindler, Munich 1967), ISBN 3-453-00225-3 .

Web links

  • But still . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1968 ( online - February 12, 1968 , review).