THE BARONESS

The Baroness is a freelance agent for the United States.

Born Penelope Worthington of 'the Philadelphia Worthingtons', the woman who would become one of America's greatest secret agents came into the world as a creature used to comfort and the best of everything. Her father was at the top of Pennsylvanian society and her mother was from the cream of the crop in Boston.

Her upbringing was consistent with her station in life - the best schools, the best company, and the best activities. She became as used to jet setting as she was to breathing. Her only entry outside the genteel pursuits was her strange love of spy fiction, of which she was addicted.

At a young, unspecified age, Penny, as she is known to her friends, married John Stanton Marlowe, a dashing man who held a hush-hush job in the State Department. Upon his sudden death in a plane crash, she learned that he had been a high-ranking member of the American Intelligence group and that many of those who had been to their dinner parties had been in the CIA, NSA, and DIA.

Sometime after becoming a widow, Penelope met and fell in love with the Baron Renaldo St. John-Orsini, a member of the aristocracy from both Italy and England. Together they shared a love of excitement such as skydiving, water-skiing, and, best of all, Grand Prix racing. It was that last activity that would take his life, leaving her once again a widow. This time she was also left quite wealthy.

Wanting to make her life have some meaning and having seen, while married to her first husband, how disorganized the entire Intelligence community was, the Baroness decided that the best agent was one who could work outside the control of the alphabet agencies.

To this end, she found a man who was as discreet as he was respected. John Farnsworth was well thought of by the different groups as well as the President. To him she brought her idea and together they were able to put that plan.

Farnsworth took the role of the 'Key', unknown to everyone except the head of the NSA and the President. To him would be passed the hardest of the jobs, the ones the others couldn't handle. He would, in turn, pass it on to the 'Coin' and her small team of carefully selected operatives.

Operating out of a top-notch modeling agency known as International Models, Inc., the Baroness, known to be the 'Coin' only by Farnsworth, would be the unknown spy the nation would come to rely on.

The plots were good though routine. The characters were interesting and stayed fairly within their scope. The action is very good. I should have liked this series. I didn't.

I might have liked the Baroness if it hadn't been for the sex. It was too often, sometimes coming at the strangest times. It is broke the flow of the story in a way that just didn't work. And, worst of all, it was told in a harsh, almost clinical manner with no attempt at eroticism. It just didn't work.

Another reason for the failure of this series is its obvious play on the Modesty Blaise theme. We have a beautiful, successful woman secretly being a secret agent. But where Modesty is warm and friendly, Penelope is quite cold and authoritative. The rapport that Modesty had with her Willie Garvin is totally lacking in the 'I am the boss' approach that the Baroness had with her team. The most probable reason for the failure is that while the author of Modesty genuinely liked her, there was no such affection by the person or persons who drafted the Baroness stories. That is a pity.