FIST OF GOD From Booklist Why was Saddam Hussein so confident in the face of U.S. and UN military might? Did he perhaps have a secret weapon to unleash on the armies defending Kuwait? Espionage-master Forsyth (The Day of the Jackal) raises such questions in his intriguing new novel, in which Saddam (who appears throughout at meetings of his Cabinet) does not seem to mind if thousands of his people are killed in battle. He's banking on the American and British traditional abhorrence of casualties. British brothers Mike and Terry Martin are experts in spying, and since Mike can easily pass for an Arab, he goes undercover, first into Kuwait, and then, in a particularly bold move, into Baghdad itself. Terry handles the organization of an elaborate mission to find Saddam's secret weapon, dubbed the fist of God. The information about the weapon comes to them from Jericho, a highly connected source in Saddam's inner circle. Meanwhile, a dowdy Viennese bank secretary is wined and dined by an Israeli spy posing as an Arabic student in order to get at her boss' vital information and cash. As usual, Forsyth's research is impeccable; his characters, though thinly drawn (Mike Martin is something of a superman), are winning; his cameos of world leaders such as Bush, Thatcher, Schwarzkopf, Gorbachev, and Saddam himself help put the behind-the-scenes war in context; and Forsyth's ending, despite the obvious coalition victory, still offers a spectacular surprise. Joe Collins