The Executor

Despite some unintentionally comic stylistic clinkers in the opening sections of his first novel, Klemer spins a generally intriguing tale of vengeance. In the 1930s, a young Italian sailor risks his life to save an American banker and his wife from a burning ship. Three decades later, for his own gain, the rescued man's son callously causes his father's savior--now a struggling tugboat operator in the U.S.--to lose his vessel and, indirectly, his life. Twenty years after that, the tug captain's son, now a successful criminal lawyer, puts into action a complex plan designed to destroy the reputation and prominence of the banker. But dark secrets come to light in the wake of the lawyer's engineered holdup of guests at a high society wedding aboard a yacht docked in the New York harbor: fraud, bribery, even murder. Klemer's two-dimensional characters range from corrupt U.S. senators to crazed and violent killers, from daughters both illegitimate and unknowingly adopted to eager young cops and Nazi sympathizers. Still, readers who persevere will be pleased at how things turn out. 20,000 first printing; $20,000 ad/promo. (Feb.)