''The Spike'' is a

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. * January 9 – ...

spy thriller

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

by Arnaud de Borchgrave and

Robert Moss Robert Moss, born in Melbourne (Victoria) in 1946, is an Australian historian, journalist and author and the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Biography Early life and education Moss survived severa ...

(New York: Crown Publishers, 1980). Drawing on de Borchgrave's experience as a jet-setting '' Newsweek'' journalist and conservative Washington insider, it tells the story of a radical '60s journalist,

Bob Hockney Bob, BOB, or B.O.B. may refer to: Places *Mount Bob, New York, United States *Bob Island, Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica People, fictional characters, and named animals *Bob (given name), a list of people and fictional characters *Bob (surname) ...

, who stumbles upon a Soviet plot for global supremacy by 1985. When he tries to expose the web of blackmail, sex and espionage, he's hamstrung by his editors' liberal media bias. In the news world, to " spike" a story means to cancel its publication. De Borchgrave and Moss envision a scenario in which the KGB exploits the attitudes of the unsuspecting Western media, which was allegedly more interested in unmasking CIA agents than stopping the Soviets, threatening to thwart Hockney's big scoop. The best-selling book was marketed not only as a spy thriller but an exposé of real-life Washington. ''Time'' called the book a '' roman à clef'' for its fictionalized versions of real people and organizations, including Zbigniew Brzezinski and the radical left-wing magazine ''Ramparts''. In a 1980 interview with '' The New York Times,'' de Borchgrave mentions that he came up with the idea for a novel after he and his wife had to hide in the English countryside, after anonymous threats were made in response to a '' Newsweek'' article he wrote that named some of the terrorists behind the

1972 Munich massacre The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack carried out during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, by eight members of the Palestinian militant organization Black September, who infiltrated the Olympic Village, killed two members ...

. The authors' 1983 follow-up, '' Monimbo'', envisioned Miami race rioters as the pawns of Nicaraguan and Cuban communists.

Footnotes

1980 American novels American spy novels American thriller novels {{1980s-spy-novel-stub