"I ask asylum." With these words a man,

pleading and terrified, bursts into the of-

fice of James Dory, assistant to the

United States Ambassador to Chile. Be-

fore Dory can properly question him, the

Chilean is arrested by the secret police

and accused of the murder of an Ameri-

can businessman in Santiago the night

before.

James Dory is a seasoned diplomat.

But for him this is the breaking point.

The man was under his protection. He

knows what happens to people who dis-

appear in the Junta s jails. Cautiously at

first, then stubbornly and at last heroi-

cally, he battles to save the llfe of an in-

nocent man.

His investigation leads from an arms

convention in Los Angeles to a prison

for dissidents inside a lunatic asylum in

the heart of Santiago. As he maneuvers

between the dreaded secret police and

the fanatical freedom fighters, he is

sucked into a frightening vortex of in-

trigue and deception. Bit by bit Dory un-

covers details of a giant conspiracy to in-

filtrate illegal arms into Chile, and comes under intense pressure to call off

his search for the truth. Eventually he

too becomes a man on the run from his

friends as well as his enemies.

At one level a taut political thriller,

The Final Act is also a novel of be-

trayal-how far a man who believes in

individual liberty will go to protect it and

how far a government locked in its own

power struggle will go to stop him. It

marks the debut of an outstanding

novelist.

Christopher Hudson was born in 1946

and educated at The King s School,

Canterbury, and at Jesus College, Cam-

bridge, where he edited Granta. In 1971

he was appointed Literary Editor of the

Spectator, for which he also reviewed

films. He left to work with Stuart Cooper

on the screenplay of Overlord, which

won the Silver Bear at the 1975 Berlin

Film Festival. Since 1977 Hudson has

been a regular contributor of editorials

and reviews to the London Evening

Standard.