Kingpin

This is the world of Harold Robbins's The Adventurers, so it is not surprising that Hirschfeld, author of Fire Island and Acapulco, and Fadiman have gleaned an endorsement from him praising their novel. The story revolves around three characters. Jack Keaveny is a quixotic New York vice cop crusading to clear the streets of drugs, who eventually becomes head of the Washington-based D-Group formed to bring down the kingpins of the illicit drug world. Napoleon Cruz, Keaveny's dark alter ego, is the son of a prostitute who rises to become a drug czar in Sixaola and has farfetched aspirations to gain Noriega-like power. Breathtaking Nina Fuentes is the woman who moves between them, seductress and assassin extraordinaire. Keaveny learns that while he may be in the vanguard of the war against drugs, political expediency takes precedence over interdiction, and Napoleon discovers that emulating his namesake creates some powerful problems. The paths of the two men collide in a finale that is satisfying, if a little perfunctory. Fans of the genre will find here plenty of sprawling, moneyed, hard-nosed sex and violence, laced with a cynicism born of the Watergate and Iran-contra scandals. (August)