Frederik Pohl - The Cool War

One day, the Reverend Hornswell Hake had nothing worse to contend with than the customary power shortages and his routine pastoral chores, such as counseling the vivacious Alys Brant - and her husbands and wife. At nearly forty, his life was placid, almost humdrum.

The very next day, Horny Hake was first enlisted as an unwilling agent of the Team - secret successor to the long-discredited CIA - and then courted by an anti-Team underground group. In practically no time at all, Horny and Alys were touring Europe on a mission about which he knew zip, except that it was a new move in the Cool War, the worldwide campaign of sabotage that had replaced actual combat.

For the team and its opponents, though, the Cool War could be as perilous as any hot one, as Horny Hake discovered when he came up against.

Leota, lovely leader of the underground cabal, dedicated to destroying the Team; Yosper, the Bible-thumping, foul-mouthed nonogenarian killer; The Reddi twins, professional terrorists who turned up in the oddest places at the worst times and always managed to make Horny's life miserable; And Pegleg, master of such lethal toys as the Bulgarian Brolly and the Peruvian Pen.

Picaresque and fast-moving, THE COOL WAR is also a deeply ironic, often hilarious, yet thought-provoking look at where we could be, some forty years from now.