What do you think?
Rate this book
Maze
While the CIA is doing its research into psychic powers - aided in their experiments by a woman who has the uncanny ability to locate the co-ordinates of Soviet submarines - the Russians have an altogether bigger and more sinister project in developing a device that uses electromagnetic waves to trigger responses in the brains of unsuspecting victims. In the most deadly and secret struggle of the new cold war, the Russians set their sights on the US President and attempt to manipulate fanatical Islamic terrorists to play a role in their ambitious scheme. Only one man can stop them and avert a tragedy of terrifying proportions - CIA officer Art Bennington.FROM New York Daily News, by Bill BellPay attention, class, for this is a thriller about magnetoencephalography, which is (A) a Wales train stop or (B) the science of recording magnetic fields of the brain.B, you say?Ah, then you are ready to pick up "MAZE," a most complicated brain science thriller by Larry Collins (Simon & Schuster, $19.95), whose previous works, as co-auther, landed him on the best-seller lists with "O Jerusalem," ''Or I'll Dress You in Mourning" and "Is Paris Burning?"This one has scraps and bits of everything - Soviet sleepers in Washington, terrorists in Beirut, plotters at the Kremlin, uprisings by Russian ethnics and extrasensory perception. Plus, above all, a plot to provoke the U.S. president into doing something so rash that it would shift the balance of world power.To drive the president bonkers, the Kremlin baddies need access to the data recorded on a - here we go again - magnetoencephalograph used when he took his physical at Bethesda Naval Hospital.The president flies into a rage (bad political news while he is undergoing the exam) and a clever Russian female scientist has discovered a way to provoke his rage on command - with an electromagnetic signal.Soon a hotshot Soviet agent has sneaked into Washington to steal a computer disc containing the data. He does, with the help of a long-time sleeper who has, incidentally, just slept with our CIA hero.Now, the bad Russkies can bombard the White House with the electromagnetic signals that release the chemicals that trigger the chief executive's rage. OK so far? Plus, they organize a terrorist bombing of a high school dance at a West German military base, cleverly arranged to look like the work of the ayatollah.The president orders a White House crisis meeting to deal with the attack, and zap! just like that, the president goes ape. Soon, he is ordering a nuclear strike on the ayatollah.Now our hero, who has a background in psychic studies, solves the mystery and before you can say magnetoencephalography, foils the plot.It's all very lively and exotic. It and a tube of sunblock should make for a nice weekend at the beach.From Publishers Weekly"...uncanny command of the inner workings of the international intelligence apparatus.... The action begins with the KGB's murder of a New York psychic with a flair for locating the coordinates of Soviet submarines. She had been helpful in CIA mind experiments, but the Russians are onto something even a device that uses electromagnetic waves to trigger responses in the brains of unsuspecting people at a distance. The KGB intends to use this magneto-encephalogram to zap the U.S. president during a crisis. First, Arab terrorists controlled by Moscow blow up a U.S. Army-run high school in Germany, killing many teenagers. Then the zapping of the president begins, and our enraged, mentally unhinged Chief Executive gives the order to nuke Iran in retaliation. A subplot involving rebellious Moslem nationalists within the U.S.S.R.
432 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1989
8 people are currently reading
124 people want to read
About the author
Larry Collins
65 books181 followersBorn in West Hartford, Connecticut, he was educated at the Loomis Chaffee Institute in Windsor, Connecticut, and graduated from Yale as a BA in 1951. He worked in the advertising department of Procter and Gamble, in Cincinnati, Ohio, before being conscripted into the US Army. While serving in the public affairs office of the Allied Headquarters in Paris, from 1953-1955, he met Dominique Lapierre with whom he would write several best-sellers over 43 years.
He went back to Procter and Gamble and became the products manager of the new foods division in 1955. Disillusioned with commerce, he took to journalism and joined the Paris bureau of United Press International in 1956, and became the news editor in Rome in the following year, and later the MidEast bureau chief in Beirut.
In 1959, he joined Newsweek as Middle East editor, based in New York. He became the Paris bureau chief in 1961, where he would work until 1964, until he switched to writing books.
In 1965, Collins and Lapierre published their first joint work, Is Paris Burning? (in French Paris brûle-t-il?), a tale of Nazi occupation of the French capital during World War II and Hitler's plans to destroy Paris should it fall into the hands of the Allies. The book was an instant success and was made into a movie in 1966 by director René Clément, starring Kirk Douglas, Glenn Ford and Alain Delon.
In 1967, they co-authored Or I'll Dress you in Mourning about the Spanish bullfighter Manuel Benítez El Cordobés.
In 1972, after five years' research and interviews, they published O Jerusalem! about the birth of Israel in 1948, turned into a movie by Elie Chouraqui.
In 1975, they published Freedom at Midnight, a story of the Indian Independence in 1947, and the subsequent assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. It is said they spent $300,000 researching and still emerged wealthy.
The duo published their first fictional work, The Fifth Horseman, in 1980. It describes a terrorist attack on New York masterminded by Libya's Colonel Gaddafi. The book had such a shocking effect that the French President cancelled the sale of nuclear reactors to Libya, even though it was meant for peaceful purposes. Paramount Pictures, which was planning a film based on the book, dropped the idea in fear that fanatics would emulate the scenario in real life.
In 1985, Collins authored Fall From Grace (without Lapierre) about a woman agent sent into occupied France who realizes she may be betrayed by her British masters if necessary. He also wrote Maze: A Novel (1989), Black Eagles (1995), Le Jour Du Miracle: D-Day Paris (1994) and Tomorrow Belongs To Us (1998). Shortly before his death, he collaborated with Lapierre on Is New York Burning? (2005), a novel mixing fictional characters and real-life figures that speculates about a terrorist attack on New York City.
In 2005, while working from his home in the south of France on a book on the Middle East, Collins died of a sudden cerebral haemorrhage.
He went back to Procter and Gamble and became the products manager of the new foods division in 1955. Disillusioned with commerce, he took to journalism and joined the Paris bureau of United Press International in 1956, and became the news editor in Rome in the following year, and later the MidEast bureau chief in Beirut.
In 1959, he joined Newsweek as Middle East editor, based in New York. He became the Paris bureau chief in 1961, where he would work until 1964, until he switched to writing books.
In 1965, Collins and Lapierre published their first joint work, Is Paris Burning? (in French Paris brûle-t-il?), a tale of Nazi occupation of the French capital during World War II and Hitler's plans to destroy Paris should it fall into the hands of the Allies. The book was an instant success and was made into a movie in 1966 by director René Clément, starring Kirk Douglas, Glenn Ford and Alain Delon.
In 1967, they co-authored Or I'll Dress you in Mourning about the Spanish bullfighter Manuel Benítez El Cordobés.
In 1972, after five years' research and interviews, they published O Jerusalem! about the birth of Israel in 1948, turned into a movie by Elie Chouraqui.
In 1975, they published Freedom at Midnight, a story of the Indian Independence in 1947, and the subsequent assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. It is said they spent $300,000 researching and still emerged wealthy.
The duo published their first fictional work, The Fifth Horseman, in 1980. It describes a terrorist attack on New York masterminded by Libya's Colonel Gaddafi. The book had such a shocking effect that the French President cancelled the sale of nuclear reactors to Libya, even though it was meant for peaceful purposes. Paramount Pictures, which was planning a film based on the book, dropped the idea in fear that fanatics would emulate the scenario in real life.
In 1985, Collins authored Fall From Grace (without Lapierre) about a woman agent sent into occupied France who realizes she may be betrayed by her British masters if necessary. He also wrote Maze: A Novel (1989), Black Eagles (1995), Le Jour Du Miracle: D-Day Paris (1994) and Tomorrow Belongs To Us (1998). Shortly before his death, he collaborated with Lapierre on Is New York Burning? (2005), a novel mixing fictional characters and real-life figures that speculates about a terrorist attack on New York City.
In 2005, while working from his home in the south of France on a book on the Middle East, Collins died of a sudden cerebral haemorrhage.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 5, 2024
si fueses a una tienda de libros de segunda mano con tu amiga y encontraseis un libro que os llama la atención y además resulta que tienen dos copias, no lo compraríais ipso facto? no? pues
lu y yo sí
descubrir a Larry Collins ha sido como recibir una lección de historia disfrazada de novela de acción, en el buen sentido.
además, creo que conocer un poco más de la Guerra Fría y de las fuerzas que tomaron parte en la misma desde dentro rompe por completo con la clásica dicotomía entre EEUU/URSS como buenos/malos, cargando una crítica irónica hacia la prepotencia americana.
¡y no se queda solo con los clásicos! creo que en la historia nos hemos olvidado del papel decisivo que jugaron los países árabes en el pasado y también en el presente.
¿cómo vamos a interpretar las noticias si no entendemos las relaciones y carga histórica que todos estos países han tenido entre unos y otros? leyendo libros como estos.
p.d: buddy reading es una de las mejores cosas del mundo!!
lu y yo sí
descubrir a Larry Collins ha sido como recibir una lección de historia disfrazada de novela de acción, en el buen sentido.
además, creo que conocer un poco más de la Guerra Fría y de las fuerzas que tomaron parte en la misma desde dentro rompe por completo con la clásica dicotomía entre EEUU/URSS como buenos/malos, cargando una crítica irónica hacia la prepotencia americana.
¡y no se queda solo con los clásicos! creo que en la historia nos hemos olvidado del papel decisivo que jugaron los países árabes en el pasado y también en el presente.
¿cómo vamos a interpretar las noticias si no entendemos las relaciones y carga histórica que todos estos países han tenido entre unos y otros? leyendo libros como estos.
p.d: buddy reading es una de las mejores cosas del mundo!!
November 10, 2018
Sometimes you read a book that is placed in your adult lifetime and think "wait, that was really the world while I was alive???" This was a great global intrigue / spycraft / end of cold war thriller that not only was playing to it's time (published in '89 and reads as a somewhat precursor to the Berlin Wall coming down) but also somewhat showing the future of geopolitical craziness. Mostly flipping between a few spots in Russia, Berlin and Washington, and telling the story from various perspectives as everyone had their own role in the action happening with actual little true crossover, it both held my attention as a straight tense "nuclear action / WW3 may be coming" thriller and a treatise on how much power a few well placed people can wield over the future of the world.
Add in some great psychological plotlines (along various levels) and a spectre of mind control that was much more reasonable than most - just a really good "end of the cold war, this is how things were going" story. Almost went 5 stars but didn't have that "yea, this is a classic" feel to it which I usually save the 5th one for, but if political or spy thrillers are enjoyable for you, definitely give this book a shot.
Add in some great psychological plotlines (along various levels) and a spectre of mind control that was much more reasonable than most - just a really good "end of the cold war, this is how things were going" story. Almost went 5 stars but didn't have that "yea, this is a classic" feel to it which I usually save the 5th one for, but if political or spy thrillers are enjoyable for you, definitely give this book a shot.
May 18, 2021
The Soviet Union at its almost end but still remarkably dangerous in 1989. Fascinating and very intricately detailed, reading this book takes a lot of focus - not a light read. Perhaps too much detail for the non-scientist, non-spy, but very satisfying for some, I’m sure. It’s scary to think how close to the truth this could actually be...
So much research and care that obviously went into making the story seem real- CIA, KGB, USSR, the President’s cabinet, scientific experimentation earns this great read 4 stars from me.
So much research and care that obviously went into making the story seem real- CIA, KGB, USSR, the President’s cabinet, scientific experimentation earns this great read 4 stars from me.
December 22, 2022
3.5 stars.
March 1, 2017
Libro muy comercial, muy fácil de leer
February 26, 2021
Four stars. It was quite entertaining
November 12, 2013
I gave this book an "average" rating because I really can't say how good or bad it is. KGB, militaries, spies, etc. are not the type of stories that capture my attention.
I did not get very reading Maze before I realized it was something I had no interest in reading.
I did not get very reading Maze before I realized it was something I had no interest in reading.
Read
September 29, 2014Hace mucho tiempo que lo leí y no recuerdo prácticamente nada. Tengo la remota referencia que en su día me gustó bastante pero no puedo acordarme por qué.
En cualquier caso de Larry Collins he leído otras cosas y siempre me ha interesado.
En cualquier caso de Larry Collins he leído otras cosas y siempre me ha interesado.
September 13, 2007
fun mystery with a mention to magnetoencephalography as a mean to detect the truth...
May 10, 2010
Loved the concept. Very beliveable. The idea of controling the human body externally
September 1, 2014
just loved the whole concept!!
June 6, 2016
Far fetched, I agree. But after seeing 'Inception" seems to be ahead of its time
June 30, 2014
didn't finish
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews