BLOOD IVORY

In previous novels not published in the US, South African hunter/athlete/game-warden Lance Weber apparently battled a lethal nemesis named Theodore Bruun--who wound up dead. Now, however, Weber believes that Bruun is somehow still alive. (Who else, after all, would ""want to butcher my parents in their bed and then dismember their bodies with a meat-cleaver?"") Understandably, then, after a series of vicious murders by Bruun's Chinese henchmen, Weber determines to hunt his arch-enemy down once and for all. But how will Weber lure Bruun into a final death-duel? Well, he gets the perfect opportunity when gorgeous Esmeralda Ellimore hires him to track down the treasure buried somewhere in East Africa by her dead hunter-husband: a $20 million cache of ivory--which Bruun is sure to try to grab for himself. So off go sexy Esmerelda, Weber, and his giant black sidekick Jimmy--first to Macao for financing (from ivory king Sir P. K. Kan), then to Tanzania. They're followed, of course, by Bruun's killer-Chinese--but also by others: the CIA-trained enforcer for the Organisation for African Unity, who brings out troops from various nations (he wants the ivory for the Africans); and gorgeous Christine, who wants the ivory for the Wildlife Fund. Bloody ambushes and skirmishes ensue--with Swahili warriors hired to protect Weber's convoy. He does manage to find the ivory and get it out of Africa (by boat). But for the final showdown he must go to Bruun's lair in the Opium Triangle--where the super-villain perishes. . . Oz-style. (""That puddle on the floor. . . . He lived in a cube of armoured, gas-proof glass. We burnt his glass and him with white phosphorus."") Crude, mindless action-melodrama--with loads of violence, some solid Africa details (roads, topography, ivory-hunting), and comic-book dialogue that's occasionally, half-intentionally amusing.