Calypso Caper — E. Howard Hunt

Ex-spy and D.C. troubleshooter Steve Bentley travels to the Virgin Islands, a tropical paradise where the weather is hot and the women are hotter...and life is murder... in his eighth thrilling adventureAn old Cha-Cha fisherman finds the naked body of ex-casino boss Victor Polo floating off the Frenchtown docks and brings the corpse back to town. By noon, a Calypso band had penned a tune for poor Victor...and soon everybody on the island knows the words: Mistah Victor Polo was a Big Time ManHe gable for money where evah he canWin lotta money, then lose it, too.Mistah Victor Polo, he all through.....But nobody knows why Victor Polo came back to St. Thomas... or why he was killed. And not many people care. Only the Virgin Islands Police. The Murderer. And Polo's old friend... Steve BentleyA solid potboiler... it's got enough stylistic flair, high-octane twists, and layered mystery that make it a perfect page-turner. Hunt's execution is enjoyable; his prose is superb at times, reminding you that he beat out Gore Vidal and Truman Capote to win a Guggenheim Fellowship. It's the kind of book that really grows on you, with the depth and complexity of the murder-mystery plot drawing you in. Battered, Tattered, Yellowed And CreasedAs 'Robert Dietrich, ' E. Howard Hunt wrote ten novels starring Steve Bentley, a Washington D.C. accountant who solves murders in private-eye style. The first thing to know about Bentley is that he isn't just a paper-pushing CPA. He's a Korean War veteran who was employed at one time by the U.S. Treasury Department. If you love vintage crime-fiction you should enjoy this tale. The Paperback WarriorABOUT THE AUTHORRobert Dietrich was a pseudonym for E. Howard Hunt, better known for his role in the Watergate scandal rather than for his great crime novels. Gore Vidal wrote this about Robert Dietrich in The New York Times: In 1957, H.H. gave birth to 'Robert Dietrich.' who specialized in thrillers, featuring Steve Bentley, formerly of the CID and now a tax consultant. H.H. plainly enjoys composing plausible (and implausible) biographies for his characters-not to mention for himself. In Contemporary Authors, H.H. composed a bio for his pseudonym Robert Dietrich, taking ten years off his age, putting himself in the infantry during Korea, awarding himself a Bronze Star and a degree from Georgetown.