TOURNAMENT

by Herbert B. & Ron Hamlin Livesey ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1980

Solid deep-sea fishing action--almost drowned in big-lousy-novel trappings. Ernest Lichine, 28, has inadvertently become swordfisherman of the year and is awarded a prize at the Floridian Yacht Club in Palm Beach along with the grand prizewinners in other categories. Millionaires all, the five winners decide to spend several months in a super-contest to see which is the greatest fisher-person of all, for a purse of $5,000,000. All five will take separate yachts and crews (with umpires) and determine which one can land the biggest total of big fish in all five categories. So the heavy-breathing authors must give us details, of course, on the five yachts, five crews, and five international fishing grounds--not to mention the hostelries and social backgrounds of each port. Plus: each millionaire's hangups, especially those of Catherine Nettles--a voracious, pill-popping, plastic-surgeried, bisexual, 40-year-old widow who lands Ernest in her bed before he has even hired his crew. As the contest builds, with Ernest trailing, two of the leaders are forced out by means of dirty deals engineered by millionaire Horst Triga, and then Catherine overdoses on drugs and booze (by accident?); so it's a showdown duel between Horst and Ernest over the black marlin. High-priced cuisine and liquor, bar brawls and throbbing lust--but only the fishing scenes (some of them preposterous) are carried off with style or authority: marginal entertainment, then, mostly for rod-and-reel buffs who'll be willing to overlook the amateurish, crudely talky novelizing.

Pub Date: July 11, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION