Corsican Honor - Hardcover

Sprawling, spirited follow-up to The Corsican (1983)--one of the violent crime dramas that Heffernan specialized in before his lighter mystery-thrillers (Blood Rose, etc.). Here, as in The Corsican, the nearly nonstop action--which ranges from 1947 to 1990--mixes spicy Corsican gangster lore and intense spy-vs.-spy intrigue. The story opens in 1980 Marseilles, where hero Alex Moran, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) office chief, sets out to ensnare German terrorist Ernst Ludwig, a sadistic killing machine who doesn't let his Soviet protectors get in the way of his pleasures--bombing innocents and rape-mutilating young women. Alex, aided by his Corsican mobster ``uncles'' Antoine and Meme Pisani--who served Alex's CIA-honcho dad before him--gets close enough to Ludwig to wound him in the cheek and push him into a vengeful kidnapping of Alex's wife, Stephanie. To save her, Alex turns international outlaw, strong-arming the local KGB chief for help--an act that doesn't save Stephanie from Ludwig's sadistic wrath but does force Alex into long exile at the Pisani's Corsica stronghold. Cut to a long flashback set in 1947, detailing how the Pisanis rose to power with the help of Alex's father, who in turn used them to control Red agitators in Marseilles. Cut to 1990, with Alex an unhappy teacher of English at a small New England college- -until Ludwig reappears in Europe and the CIA calls on Alex to take his best shot. Middle-aged Alex undergoes rigorous Special Forces retraining, then heads to Europe for a drawn-out but consistently exciting manhunt that brings him head-to-head against not only Ludwig but his father as well--and the devil's deal for power and fortune he made 43 years before. Busy, bloody, generally gripping--and tougher than a barrel of Corleones, though not nearly as clever. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

If Mario Puzo and Richard Condon teamed up, they might write a novel much like this colorful, eventful and scathing view of an alliance between mobsters and "nice" rich people. In 1980 Alex Moran, American Defense Intelligence Agency station chief in Marseilles, is hot on the trail of terrorist Ludwig when the psychopath kidnaps and butchers Alex's unfaithful wife, Stephanie. The bereaved Alex is forced to resign after he breaks spook rules by launching a personal vendetta against Ludwig, backed by his "uncles" Antoine and Meme Pisani, the heads of the top Corsican Mafia faction. A flashback to 1947 shows Alex's father, Piers, using the Pisanis to "save" Marseilles from the Communists for the fledgling CIA. Then, in 1990, Alex leaves his boozy life as a Vermont college professor to help his uncles fend off an attack from a Colombian drug lord who is using Ludwig as his chief weapon. The action turns very nasty, with the CIA depicted as up to its neck in illicit drug dealings. Heffernan ( Blood Rose ) provides satisfying color and punch, particularly in terrific descriptions of the Corsican mob milieu.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.