Samuel Hamrick Jr.; Diplomat Wrote Popular Spy Novels

Although Kernan's review was mixed, he praised Mr. Hamrick for writing "one of the most deadly accurate" novels written about the city.

After another novel set in Africa, "The Lion and the Jackal" (1988), Mr. Hamrick returned to a Cold War setting for "Last Train From Berlin" (1994). It was his first book published after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yardley described it as "a skillful and engrossing piece of work" but felt that the author was telling an oft-told tale that had lost some of its force.

In 1994, Mr. Hamrick returned to Africa, serving briefly as a State Department consultant in Somalia, a country he knew well.

His final novel, "The Consul's Wife" (1998), was set in Africa during the Vietnam War era. The character Blakey Ogden falls in love with a junior diplomat named Hugh Mathews. A Kentucky-born Foreign Service officer, Mathews sees himself as her rescuer, freeing her from "a barren marriage to a sexually illiterate husband who romped out his passion knocking tennis balls into the net or nimbly dancing his way through a cocktail-party set. . . . "

For his last book, Mr. Hamrick turned to non-fiction. "Deceiving the Deceivers: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess," published under his own name in 2004, tells the story of five notorious members of the British establishment who became communist spies while students at Cambridge in the 1930s. Using their subsequent positions within the British government, including at the British Embassy in Washington, they transferred thousands of sensitive military documents to the Soviets.

Mr. Hamrick's marriage to Joan Neurath Hamrick ended in divorce.

Survivors include his companion of 12 years, of Boston, Va.; four children from his marriage, Samuel Jennings Hamrick III of Seattle, John Hamrick of Port Angeles, Wash., Hugh Hamrick of Paris and Anne Hamrick Burns of Greencastle, Pa.; three sisters; and five grandchildren.