Algis Budrys, best known as a science fiction writer and critic, died on June 9th. For an overview of his career in that field, I can do no better than send you to Todd Mason’s blog, thanks to a tip from Bill Crider, from whom I borrowed the cover image below.

   Most of the other websites and blogs covering his passing will talk about his SF. He does have, however, one work cited in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, an artifact of sorts of the Cold War:

ALGIS BUDRYS Who?

BUDRYS, ALGIS. Working name of Algirdas Jonas Budrys, 1931-2008.

      Who? (Pyramid, 1958, pb) Badger (U.K.), 1960. Film: British Lion 1974, released in the U.S. as Man Without a Face; also released as Man in the Steel Mask; and as Prisoner of the Skull (scw: John Gould; dir: Jack Gold).

   From wikipedia comes a detailed synopsis of the tale:

    “A Soviet team abducts Dr. Lucas Martino, a leading Allied physicist in charge of a secret, high-priority project called K-88.

    “Several months later, under American pressure, the Communist officials finally hand over an individual, claiming that he is Dr. Martino. The man has undergone extensive surgery for his injuries. He has a mechanical arm advanced beyond any produced in the West. More importantly, his face and head have been dramatically rebuilt, now resembling a near-featureless metal mask. A medical evaluation reveals that several of the man’s internal organs are also artificial. The Allies are suspicious that the Soviets have sent them a spy and are holding the real Martino for further interrogation.

    “The struggle to determine the man’s true identity is the novel’s central conflict.”

   But the book is much more than a Cold War espionage caper. Extracted from a review at www.trashfiction.co.uk/who.html is the following:

    “It’s a philosophical piece about the nature of human identity, and how bound up it is in the existence of a face. Does a man lose his past if he (literally) loses face? Can you trust such a man? Is human interaction possible if one party can’t read the facial expressions of the other?”