COURIER'S FIST

Routine paranoia-chase-suspense--in a very humdrum Hitchcock mode. Mark Pine, a down-at-heels New York lawyer about to close up shop for lack of clients in 1966, is made an offer by three smiling government agents (including fat Mr. Bigger): he'll get $5000 if he goes to Paris, picks up an envelope, and delivers it to the US Embassy. But when Mark arrives in Paris, he's suddenly surrounded by murders: the woman who gives him the envelope tells him of her brother's throat-cutting death, and then she is promptly killed likewise--by two Germans. . . led by Mr. Bigger! So now Mark is on the run--with new love Laura and with Soviet secret papers: a list of missile sites in North Vietnam including those with operative nuclear warheads. He's attacked by the two Germans and kills them bare-handedly; he sees Mr. Bigger wherever he turns; he's drugged and beaten by two Russians; French police stalk him for murder; French Intelligence wants that list too. And so on--as the KGB mutilate-murders Bigger (who has miffed them) and kidnaps the lovers. . . who'll be rescued by US/French forces in a shootout. Assembly-line espionage.