CLAWHAMMER

An apolitical wildlife artist gets partial responsibility for his orphaned nephews—and full responsibility for the discovery of the men who murdered his sister and her husband. African and American politics figure more heavily here than Llewellyn's usual sailboats (Blood Knot, Dead Eye), but the sea is still seen. Bachelor George Devis, author of a bestseller about Auks, up in the Ethiopian air in a helicopter with the young nephews he's taking to their English boarding school, is horrified witness to the murder of his sister Camilla and her husband Rhyd. Camilla and Rhyd, an American C&W singer, have been involved in a private project to restore the agricultural base of an African village. They're nearly saints. Why would anyone want to kill them? Landing immediately after the flight of the killers, George is told that the murders were ordered by Ras Hamil—a soldier who seeks to overthrow the government. Installing the boys in school, the grief- stricken George teams with Bill Marsden, an American reporter, on a transatlantic race. Marsden thinks the race will publicize both PloughShare, Camilla and Rhyd's charity, and their deaths. But just off the American coast, Bill is brutally murdered and the boat deliberately sunk. George survives to begin a relentless hunt for the truth behind the violence. All he has to go on are some cryptic hints on tapes Rhyd made just before his death. He receives assistance from a media mogul, who is awfully like the late Robert Maxwell, and from a bungling but rather attractive American reporter. He gets no help at all from Rhyd's creepy sister, who shares custody of the boys and who is the last believer in an ultaconservative pre-revolutionary sect. Before everything is sorted out, the acrophobic artist will have to climb a lofty grain elevator and fly a dirigible. Several scary scenes and some amusing caricatures, but it's rather too long and the momentum occasionally flounders as Llewellyn gets trapped in the American scenery.