Fish Heads

Schonberg's (Deadly Indian Summer) ambitious but implausible antinuclear thriller is set on the tiny island of Illetto, one of the Pacific's Marshall Islands, where the hydrogen bomb was tested on a U.S. military base in the 1950s. The narrative begins when a fisherman named Mero accidentally kills what he thinks is a dolphin. But Mero pulls from the bloody sea a humanlike arm with webbed fingers, a dolphin-shaped head and the eyes of a human being. Horrified, he brings the body parts to the American doctor stationed on Illetto, the detached, lonely Jodi Larsen. Already intrigued by the link between the U.S.'s presence and the escalating health problems among the native Marshallese, Jodi reports Mero's find to Virginia Chambers, a physician with sinister connections to the military. Chambers brings Dr. Jim Newell, a handsome but repressed widower who specializes in genetic damage caused by radiation, to Illetto to find more ""fish heads"" and report back to her. Instead, Jim's loyalties shift to Jodi and to the half-dolphin/half-human creatures with whom the new couple bond. The heavy-handed plot, burdened with flatly drawn characters, devolves further when Jodi and Jim exhibit absurd sentimentality about the soulful sea creatures. Since both seem devoid of personality, Jodi and Jim are a perfect pair, and when they join forces with the fish heads and the Marshallese locals, and are threatened by the ruthless CIA coverup, the story loses all credibility. Though it leaves unanswered almost every question posed by the plot, the abrupt ending is sweet relief. (Oct.)