Ixtapa

In this amalgam of tired heroics and lame prose, a courier is killed aboard a Miami-bound plane by a man dressed as a woman; the killer is then (accidentally) dispatched by an overzealous passenger. A government agency decides to intervene by putting their man in place of the courier, substituting play money for the $4 million found in the courier's briefcase and seeing what happens when the plane lands in Mexico. Chosen for the gig is Jack Novak, stalwart protagonist of Hunt's Mazatlan-once a DEA operative, now a charter fisherman and still adept at spouting macho platitudes. He is also monumentally dull, a larger-than-life cardboard hero whose convoluted escapades in various Mexican locales are unlikely to arouse, not to mention sustain, much interest. (Nov.)