VENOM

The third appearance (Toxin, Vector) of Charlie Chan-quoting Hawaiian police Lt. Takamura and his pal Chazz Koenig. Here, Takamura's wife Kimiko boards a derelict ship and discovers six corpses as well as one woman who's in a zombie-like state. What happened on the Ocean Mother, and does it tie into two other island murders and nuclear-test activities on Tahiti, where the ship sailed from? Chazz's wife, Patria, an anthropologist and postpartum depressive, is soon stalked by zombies and raped by a demented Frenchman with several aliases, while Chazz must use his akida mastery to subdue a quartet of thugs in Tahiti. Meanwhile, superstitions as well as poison-theories abound, and several more programmed zombies roam the islands before Takamura and Chazz identify the deadly venom and its dispatcher. An offbeat blend of voodoo and science, but of the four main characters only Kimiko is pleasant enough to root for. Moreover, it's time to stop raping the hero's lover as a zippy plot manipulator. Few, if any, readers will accept wife-rape as just one more occupational hazard connected with sleuthing.