THE EXPLOITERS

Crude is the kindest word for Turk Kenyon, hero of this unrefined oil novel. Turk's a womanizer but his ex-wife Bobbie can't stay out of the sack with him (he melts 'em all) though she hates him down to the last hair of his ""quivering"" mustache. Bobble, now executive secretary to American-Arabian Petroleum Company, has Turk hired to do a personality profile on Shaikh Suleiman, the mad ruler of Abu Bakr with its burgeoning new wells on the Persian Gulf. The mission turns into a conspiracy and finally into a million-dollar assassination caper for Turk and his latest lay. Leah and Turk permanently cool the crazy Arab during his game and make it out of the country. But they're bilked out of half their million by Bobble and condemned to each other's company for years to come. Dreary banalities.