THE LAST WHITE MAN IN PANAMA

A boozy con-man on the bum in Panama enlists a fired news anchoress and his own long-lost dad in the search for the murderer of his native lady love. Fortune seems to have smiled fondly on author Gough, whose first novel about Panamanian treachery and the lusts of a politically ambitious televangelist is reaching the public at just the right moment. Pudgy, hard-drinking Red Hunter, con man and gambler, isn't entirely bad; his love for Christina, the sweet Panamanian hooker known to her chums and customers as Azucar, is deep and pure. But Azucar's last two customers, a pair of excessively hard-eyed Americans, have more than the usual on their mind. They leave Azucar with her throat slit and her apartment torn to shreds. A revenge-crazed Red tracks them down, but he is no match for the duo, who try to feed him to the sharks. Red barely escapes the sharks, washes up on the beach, and is eventually nursed to health and vigor by a wiry old cuss who teaches him the very latest in self-defense techniques. The old cuss is Red's soldier-of-fortune father, who, incognito, has been keeping an eye on him right along. A recovered Red removes one of the murderers and then flies off to Bermuda in pursuit of the other crumb, who turns out to be a broadcast executive in the employ of a most unpleasant and powerful clergyman. The stay in Bermuda is considerably brightened by the presence of a lovely and clever newsperson looking for romance and fun--which she finds. Gory, but quite fun, and the timeliness of the tropical and clerical topic is, as one might imagine, sensational.