Books: Show Biz to Spy Biz

MY TEN YEARS AS A COUNTERSPY (248 pp.)—Boris Morros, as told to Charles Samuels—Viking ($3.95).

By now the spy story has become as stylized an art form as the western. According to the rules, good spies, like cowboys, always win: Boris Morros is one of those who lived to tell how he beat the paper rustlers of the NKVD.

At first blink, Boris Morros seemed unlikely for the part. With his late-Picasso haberdashery, borsht-and-bagel accent, and a personality as outgoing as a trombone, he had small chance of being inconspicuous among the grey and shadowy cadres of Soviet espionage. Also, as music director...