Hopscotch

Hopscotch by Brian Garfield  272 pp.

Many years ago I saw a great movie starring Walter Matthau and Ned Beatty. That movie was "Hopscotch" based on this novel. It's the story of Miles Kendig, a former high level CIA agent, who writes a tell-all book about his career. He sends the book chapter by chapter to his CIA bosses while on the run as they try to stop the book from being published. The plan to stop the book includes but is not limited to "eliminating" Kendig (it is the CIA after all). But he manages to outsmart the agents on his trail with one potentially disastrous slip-up. The film added more humorous moments than in the book. In spite of being an Edgar Award winner, I didn't think it was a stellar novel and, in this case, the movie is better than the book.