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IZMIR by E. Howard Hunt

IZMIR

by E. Howard Hunt

Pub Date: Feb. 15th, 1996
ISBN: 1-55611-474-5
Publisher: Donald Fine

A fourth globe-trotting turn for Jack Novak (Islamorada, p. 184, etc.), the ex-DEA operative who now does odd off-the-books jobs for agencies of the US government, damsels in distress, or anyone else who strikes his manic fancies. News that Jack's former partner, Manny Montijo, may have been kidnapped sends the Vietnam vet scurrying back to South Florida from Switzerland, where he was on the point of marrying longtime ladylove Melody (a lissome law-school student about half his age). Once on home ground, Jack learns his pal has been snatched by General Jorge Padilla, a Venezuelan drug lord who hopes to use Manny to trade out of the federal pen where he's doing hard time. At no small cost in blood, Jack (who finds time to bed Manny's Spanish cousin Pilar) manages to free his hermano from the Everglades fishing camp where he's been held captive by outlaw bikers. Rescue mission accomplished, the one-man wrecking crew rejoins Melody, who's now cruising the Aegean in a yacht owned by her gold-digging mum's current benefactor, an elderly and wealthy Turk named Mehmet Kurdlu. Shortly after boarding this well- appointed craft, Jack alertly saves all hands from death by pirates who, he deduces, came to kill Mehmet in revenge for a narcotics deal gone wrong. Following a brief stay at the grateful mogul's digs in scenic Izmir (during which Jack's drug suspicions are confirmed), the happy couple heads back to the Sunbelt, where Melody starts classes and her hard-drinking husband-to-be is obliged to retrieve Pilar from the vindictive Latinos who grabbed her by mistake. At the close, on his wedding day, Jack has yet to escape the long arm of the still-imprisoned Padilla or to ensure that Novak justice will be done by the absent Kurdlu, meaning that their paths almost surely will cross again. Crude, chaotic, and puerile, with appeal mainly for those looking to step up in class from action comics.