A collection of short stories all about Otto McGavin, following him through his workinglife as a spy. He's a specialist who impersonates people suspected criminals know so hecan infiltrate their organisations, his body changed to look like a person he is replacing and hispersonality adjusted so his reactions are as close to the original person as possible.
McGavin becomes a pompous anthropologist to investigate disappearances amonghumans studying an alien workers. A hired assassin involved in plans for war, and a fake priesttaking advantage of a benign, very long lived race. Within each story he has to discoverwhat is going on and why, before stopping any criminal activity he finds.
Within each story McGavin has to cope with impersonating someone within their groupof friends and contacts, careful not to slip up in any way, and working with limitedinformation and equipment that he can smuggle in to the situations. As the jobs mount up,with more implied between the ones in the stories, McGavin's own personality starts tosuffer, and he gets more cynical about the people he is working for and why.
A good set of interlinked stories. I found the way McGavin was discovered was a bitsimilar between two of the stories, but considering they were published six years apartoriginally it's easy to overlook. For a fast paced action read with some neat twists and ideas,you won't go far wrong with this one.
Review by Paul Silver, 2004
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