THE SPY WORE RED
by Aline, Countess of Romanones
Random House; 304 pages; $18.95
The cloak was by Balenciaga; the dagger could come from anyone -- a bullfighter, a bellboy, a ballroom dancing partner. During World War II, Aline, Countess of Romanones lived a life of glamour and danger that Ingrid Bergman only played at in Notorious. Born Aline Griffith in Pearl River, N.Y., the former Manhattan model joined the Office of Strategic Services and was posted to Madrid in 1944, where she decoded messages at the American Oil Mission. The OSS called her Tiger. Her orders: to flush out Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler's special agent in the Spanish capital. The dark, lissome beauty moved easily in international society. Her front line was frequently a receiving line or a table at Horcher's, a restaurant transplanted from Berlin.
The Spy Wore Red presents this unusual theater of war in compact scenes and entertaining dialogue. Says a matador out to impress the author with his knowledge of local history: "This is where the famous bandit Luis Candelas used to hide, Aline. He stole from the rich and gave to the poor -- just like your Robin Hat." The grim side of the job includes treachery and murder. To escape death at the hands of a Nazi strangler, Aline must shoot to kill. There are two happy endings to her story. She reduces the list of possible Himmler agents to a German countess, and lengthens her name by marrying a Spanish nobleman, Luis Figuera y Perez de Guzman el Bueno.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF SIDD FINCH
by George Plimpton
Macmillan; 275 pages; $14.95
George Plimpton is most widely known as the lean and rumpled patrician who trained with the Detroit Lions and then shared that male fantasy with football fans in his best-selling Paper Lion. Now, in The Curious Case of Sidd Finch, Plimpton indulges the fantasy that he is a novelist. The book, which began as a benign hoax in the April 1, 1985, issue of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, is based on a charming conceit: a narrator suffering from writer's block tells the story of Sidd Finch, a British-born Buddhist-trained monk who can throw a baseball 168 m.p.h with unfailing accuracy. Sidd, short for Siddhartha, joins the New York Mets in spring training and hooks up with Debbie Sue, a Florida beachgirl and playmate of porpoises. Plimpton employs real Mets as characters, digresses into baseball lore, horn playing, Zen and the art of pitching, and the emotional state of the narrator. It is all gracefully done but tends to take the reader's eye off the ball, or rather the fact that there is not much ball. An agreeably plotless pastime, Sidd Finch should appeal to minor league mystics.
DEBUTANTE: THE STORY OF BRENDA FRAZIER
by Gioia Diliberto
Knopf; 332 pages; $19.95