In the late 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, an American scientist, Charles Wilson, was working on chemical weapons in service to the CIA when he “jumped or fell” from an upper story hotel window. After the so-called “accident” the scientist’s family was compensated handsomely and quickly, but given few details. The body of the suicide victim was so mangled, they were told, they could not view it before its hasty burial. The Coldest Warrior does its best to put flesh on the bones of a skeletally true story by fictionalizing the CIA operatives most likely to have encouraged Wilson through the hotel window.
Was Wilson a risk to counter espionage because he had been unknowingly given LSD by the CIA and had become mentally unstable? Was he having second thoughts about the validity of chemical weapons? Did the CIA do the right thing in covering up the story to maintain its advantage in the Cold War when communist aggression felt like it was spreading around the glove like an unstoppable infection? Or were the CIA’s actions, in the end, not very different than Soviet tactics involving sending exiles to Siberia?
Paragraphs with scenery, weather, and outfits appear as stand-alones. Characters and their motives are a little difficult to keep track of. Nevertheless, there’s just enough action to provide inertia.