Proof Positive

A black belt in Sharin Ryu Okinawa karate, Singerman reprises his martial-arts hero Roland Troy and other characters from his well-received novel Prancing Tiger in this entertaining chiller that doubles as a morality tale exposing racism and anti-Semitism. The partner of Angela Becker, a beautiful, drag-racing ex-model turned Florida cop, is slain while investigating an elderly Austrian psychic's death in a commune of mediums and clairvoyants. To help Angela solve the case, McKenzie Rockett, Roland Troy's old sidekick, draws Troy out of seclusion in Vermont, where he has been mourning the death of his murdered wife. The trail leads Troy to a mammoth, well-guarded TV studio outside Orlando, which is actually the secret headquarters of a worldwide neo-Nazi hate organization headed by Novac DuCharme, a Machiavellian holdover from Hitler's regime. As the body count continues to rise, Troy calls his former CIA control, Jack Ubinas, for help. After Troy's old karate master enters the picture, the plot thickens as a cargo of plutonium bound for the ex-Nazi mastermind is hijacked from a freighter. Shadowy figures--good guys and bad--multiply as subplots reach into the past, involving refugees from WWII and the Holocaust. Predictably, Troy and Angela fall in love; unpredictably, the Feds bureaucracy comes riding in, pronounces the case closed and breaks up the task force. Just when all looks lost, the old karate master intervenes. Although the ending succumbs to melodrama, Singerman has a knack for constructing complex, even outlandish, plots without sacrificing the development of atmosphere and character. (Jan.)