cover image Tropic of Deceit

Tropic of Deceit

Christopher Larson. William Morrow & Company, $23 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-688-12164-8

A pudgy young American consul stationed in a Caribbean outpost, a bubblehead who thinks Rasputin is a new flavor of ice cream, a curmudgeonly CIA agent and an island kingpin comically collide in this antic debut novel. Jim Biggins finds his routine duties (denying visas) mercifully altered when the Navidad police captain asks him to look into the death of an American tourist. When Jim heads to the American Club to meet with his pal Ben, the CIA's sole representative on the island, he finds that Ben and his wife have been joined by Bobbi Lyon, with whom Jim worked in New York long ago; out of the blue, Bobbi has surfaced on Navidad looking for a job, preferably as a spy. Ben warns Jim that the police will try to use the tourist's death to frame Thomas Cort, the corrupt leader of the rival fishermen's party, but when Bobbi--a redheaded vixen with Barbie's IQ and Rambo's nerve--joins Jim on a visit to Cort, the gangster is smitten and hires her as his ``assistant.'' Seeing a chance to monitor Cort's activities, Ben puts Bobbi on the CIA payroll--illegally reporting to an uncertain Jim. Larson wryly orchestrates the ensuing catastrophes, smartly lampooning diplomatic protocol and espionage hype in a classic setting. (Feb.)