Corsican Honor

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. ( Aug. )