THE SCORPION

by Andrew Kaplan ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 18, 1986

Fast-paced, supercharged debut thriller featuring Nick Curry, an American international agent called the Scorpion, who is an ""independent"" hired by the CIA. The Scorpion's father, a wildcat oilman, died on the desert, leaving Nick to be raised by Arab tribesmen, who nicknamed him Little Scorpion. Now into espionage, the deathproof Scorpion survives two or three Indiana Jones-styled hairbreadth escapes per chapter--the book leads off with PLO heavies about to remove his four limbs one by one in a bubbling vat of condensed sulphuric acid. The plot finds beautiful blonde Kelly Ormont (once Goldberg), wealthy daughter of slimy Congressman Max Ormont, drugged and kidnapped in Paris, raped repeatedly, then transported to the Middle East, where she is introduced into the harim of Prince Abdul Sa'ad, a sadistic pervert who already has four wives, three concubines, 11 children, and a solid-gold toilet bowl. How wealthy is he? He shrugs: ""If we all did nothing but spend it lavishly every single minute, we could never spend it all."" Nor can Kelly escape the harim: should she be seen on the street, she'd be arrested by the religious police as a woman alone in public. Scorpion is hired by Harris of the CIA to find Kelly. Before he finds her, he has killed more heavies page for page than the most remorseless pulp heroes. But as it happens, nothing is what it seems. Kelly was secretly recruited by the Israelis and planted in Abdul's harim. The Russians are engineering a Middle East takeover that supposedly will smash the Americans--though the Russian program was actually devised by the CIA's Harris, who is himself an unconscionable profiteer off the oil market. Will the Scorpion return, God be praised? Will US vexations in the Middle East go away tomorrow? Kaplan unrolls a cloth-of-gold style at times, with the occasional inspired metaphor, but the essence of his imagination here is bravura clichÉ

Pub Date: March 18, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1986

Categories: FICTION