THE FROG AND THE SCORPION

by A.E. Maxwell ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 20, 1986

Somewhat less verbosely irritating than Just Another Day in Paradise (1984), this second outing for wealthy California shamus Fiddler is also a bit less convoluted than that hectic debut. But once again the plotting is overwrought, with pretentiousness creeping through on all sides. Initially Fiddler is hired by a family of Jewish Iranian bankers, refugees from the Ayatollah, richly resettled in L.A.--but now in peril: unless they pay big blackmail sums, they'll be exposed to the US as illegal aliens. . .and deported home to certain death! So Fiddler traces the anonymous blackmailer to the Muslim Student League at USC--where a time-bomb nearly demolishes his beloved super-car. And though the League has high-class ties to an American tycoon (who might be secretly building a nuclear reactor in Libya!), the blackmailer himself turns out to be a notorious PLO terrorist called Salameh. Soon, then, Fiddler is forming an uneasy alliance with over-the-hill Mossad agent Rafi--who's on a renegade mission to assassinate Salameh--and with Raft's gorgeous daughter Sharai, who might be the one who actually has to kill the terrorist. And when Salameh & Co. kidnap the Jewish-Iranian patriarch, the stage is set for a drawn-out chase/showdown in a desert canyon. Fiddler remains more smug than suave in his pseudo-James Bond act; the earnest intertwining of romance with Mideast politics is pompous and muddled. But, along with lots of chatter, there's enough quasi-macho action to make this serviceable, ragged entertainment.

Pub Date: June 20, 1986

ISBN: 193541500X

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1986

Categories: FICTION