Turning the Tide: One Man Against the Medellin Cartel

An American professor who loved the sea, Richard Novak undertook to study hammerhead sharks off Norman's Cay in the Bahamas. His arrival there in 1978 coincided with the advent of Carlos Lehder, a representative of Colombia's Medellin drug cartel, who planned to take over the island and make it a transshipment point for cocaine, perhaps with the connivance of the Bahamian prime minister. Kirkpatrick ( A Cast of Killers ) and Abrahams ( Pressure Drop ) ably recount the story of the confrontation between Novak, the unlikely (and unlikable) hero, stubborn, short-tempered, sanctimonious, and the villain, suave, urbane, sophisticated but deadly. Novak, who refused to be driven off the Cay, finally left of his own accord after laying the groundwork for the capture of Lehder, now in a U.S. prison for life. (June)