AN INCIDENT AT BLOODTIDE

The 11th adventure in which Mongo Frederickson (Dark Chant in a Crimson Key, etc.) uses superior intellect, circus tricks, karate, magic, and pretentious metaphysical folderol to foil various scourges of Western Civilization—here, the loathsome Sacra Silver, who's intent on breaking up the marriage of Mongo's brother and sister-in-law, illegally polluting the Hudson by dumping chemicals from his daddy's fleet of tankers, and making a few zillion on the side by selling parched Kuwaitis shiploads of the (contaminated) Hudson. When both the Coast Guard and the police skirt responsibility for the filth—as well as the propeller- chopped body recently found in the river—Mongo sallies forth to waylay a tanker headed for the Tappan Zee. Despite a concussion, he succeeds—only to find his brother wired up to a homemade electric chair and his sister-in-law forced to commit mayhem to save him. Mongo, a comic-book hero sans pictures, again blathers on about witches, the supernatural, and his personal philosophy (``Love, my friend, is the greatest mystery of all'')—all done in a manner destined to please the converted.