The Fox

By Frederick Forsyth

Putnam. 286 pp. $28

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In 1971 Frederick Forsyth, then a freelance reporter in need of cash, published his first novel, "The Day of the Jackal." His tale of a plot to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle won international success and established Forsyth as one of the world's premier spy novelists.

Now, at age 80, Forsyth has published his 17th novel, "The Fox." It is in one regard an odd tale but it's also ingenious, expertly written and a serious look at international conflicts that threaten the future of the world.

The novel's two main characters could hardly be more different. Sir Adrian Weston is a 70-year-old retired senior British intelligence official who remains influential because Prime Minister Marjory Graham trusts him. Sir Adrian is the novel's brains, conscience and hero.

The other lead character is Luke Jennings, an 18-year-old who sports an unruly mop of blond curls and suffers from a severe case of Asperger's syndrome. At the outset, Luke lives with his parents in a modest house in a London suburb where he spends most of his time in the attic on his computer. Luke has somehow developed an inexplicable ability to break through computer defenses. That gift is the spring of Forsyth's novel.

One day astonished American security officials discover that their most secret databases, long thought impregnable, have been hacked by an intruder who stole nothing, just looked around and withdrew. An intensive investigation identifies Luke Jennings as the culprit.

In a White House confrontation, the president - Donald Trump - demands that Luke be handed over for trial and imprisonment. But Sir Adrian insists that the boy can be more useful in London by gaining access to supposedly impenetrable databases in Iran, North Korea and Russia. Luke proceeds to break through those nations' most elaborate defenses to extract priceless intelligence, often about nuclear plans.

Forsyth's story includes scathing descriptions of several world leaders. In his discussion of North Korea's nuclear capacity, Forsyth offers scathing descriptions of its leader, Kim Jong Un, whom he sees as "Fat, ugly, insisting on a bizarre haircut" but warns that his "ruthlessness is total, his obsession with himself absolute."

Sir Adrian warns the prime minister that the supposed North Korean denuclearization is a scam - that if they have destroyed one nuclear facility they have simply hidden another one elsewhere. She asks why Trump would fall for such a ruse. Because, he says, he "lusts to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. So the desire to believe is triumphant."

Forsyth is even less flattering to Vladimir Putin, whom he describes as "a cold-eyed little former secret-police thug" and mass murderer who has colluded with Russian gangsters and oligarchs (often the same people) to make himself possibly the richest man in the world. Forsyth also portrays Putin as determined to return Russia to the prominence it enjoyed under Joseph Stalin.

Sir Adrian warns that Putin will try to dominate Europe not with nuclear weapons but by Russia's vast resources of natural gas, linked to a complex series of pipelines capable of supplying most of the continent. He tells the prime minister: "Russia has now pinned all her hopes on swamping Western Europe with her natural gas and thus becoming, through our energy dependence, our effective masters."

The pipelines are controlled by computers, so perhaps England can call upon its secret weapon, Luke Jennings, to foil the Russian plan.

Putin sends Russia's most lethal sniper - known only as Misha - to England to eliminate the troublesome teenager. Forsyth compares Misha to Vasily Zaitsev, the legendary Russian sniper who in snow-blanketed Stalingrad in winter 1942 was credited with eliminating more than 300 German soldiers.

But can Misha find Luke? Or can Sir Adrian protect the boy and preserve world peace? The outcome is exciting, surprising and satisfying.

Luke's ability to defeat computer codes is never clarified. He's called a "cybergenius" with a "bewildering" skill but his genius can't be explained because it's a gimmick, pure and simple. But it's one we accept because he's on our side, it's fun and the rest of the book is so deeply rooted in reality.

Forsyth is supremely well-informed about world affairs, politics, diplomacy, weaponry and the mysteries of spycraft. In "The Fox," as in all his novels, he lays them out in brilliant detail. Young Luke is the icing on the cake.