Commercial--Just Barely

TOPAZ by Leon Uris. 341 pages. Mc-Graw-Hill. $5.95.

The formula for a contemporary spy thriller almost always starts off with a supply of beautiful, pliant women. Crafty agents of a world conspiracy have to put in an appearance, and then, in varying combinations, there are likely to be urban vignettes from Copenhagen to Washington to Havana, stolen state papers, harried Red defectors, ominous confrontations between great powers. Finally, a suave but implacable intelligence officer can be counted on to save the West from its own follies.

Not one of the ingredients is missing from this new novel by the author of Battle Cry and Exodus. The men are a bit on the wooden side, the women and all the subplots largely unbelievable, but once again the West is triumphant--just barely. Unfortunately, for his purposes Uris finds it necessary to portray France's Charles de Gaulle as a fatuous numskull, and though le grand Charles has his share of faults, congenital stupidity is not one of them. Besides, a writer of Uris' commercial talents should think twice before trying to put words in the mouth of one of the master rhetoricians of the age.

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