TURNING THE TIDE

From journalist Kirkpatrick (A Cast of Killers, 1986) and novelist Abrahams (Pressure Drop, 1989, etc.) comes a crisply narrated story of how an American college professor took on one of the world's biggest drug-smugglers in a scenic Bahamian resort. In many respects, this is a story about a hero fighting for a virgin's honor—only here the hero, Robert Novak, set out to protect the ``virginal island'' of Norman's Cay. On a scuba-diving sabbatical, with the intention of tackling only the island's notorious hammerhead sharks, Novak instead came face to face with psychotic drug kingpin Carlos Lehder, then a top member of Colombia's Medell°n cartel. Pressured by Lehder to leave the island, Novak, who'd turned without success to the Bahamian police, was subsequently contacted by the DEA to spy on the drug smuggler. Compared to Lehder and his cold and crafty maneuvers, Novak appears here as an officious do-gooder facing mounting ``disorientation in a corrupt world where no one could be trusted.'' But his penchant for ``doing the right thing'' paid off when one night, against orders, he donned scuba gear and entered the shark-infested waters to spy on Lehder, eventually witnessing the organization of a large airborne drug-smuggling operation—a sighting leading to enough incriminating evidence to drive Lehder off the island. (Today, due to unrelated events, Lehder languishes in an American jail.) Kirkpatrick and Abrahams tell their story with cinematic precision (film rights have already been sold), using the lush, exotic landscape as the perfect background for their suspenseful, moonlit tale. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs—not seen.)