This is the account of an ex-junkie young woman, courier for crooks,
who is hired to take across America a computer disk, which she
says could have been posted, - about all I can state with certitude,
as this is an extremely convoluted story.
I do not think there are any good guys in the entire book, unless
the ex-CIA operative murdered in the first few pages is one. The
CIA is either to blame, or is not to blame, for what happened
to the rebel Viet Cong (known as VC in Vietnam), and if not, then
the American Army is to blame, or may not be to blame, either.
When she gets to Florida, she sinks the disk in the sea, which
has a faint echo of the end of The Maltese Falcon, but
makes the whole operation a waste of time.
The courier takes as much punishment from the ungodly as Marlowe
or Dick Tracy. She packs three guns, one strapped to her ankle
(echoes of the Saint's ivory-handled knife), and one like Modesty
Blaise in her bra - which must mean a very small gun or a very
large bra. Despite the batterings, she shews a masochistic streak
in her dealings with her crook lover-boss. Finally, she routs
single-handed a gang of four, led by yet another ex-CIA operative.
Her car journey across America has the nightmarish quality of
Alice in Wonderland or Dorothy Gale on the Yellow Brick Road to
Oz. She meets an ex-soldier transvestite, known as "she"
who lives with a prostitute, also apparently a "she".
She gatecrashes an all-male wedding, with a fat man in a dress
describing "himself" as "the mother of the bride".
The one integrated character is a woman charter ferry pilot who
helps her escape to a new life abroad. Lively stuff, but I did
wonder if this was written with one eye on television adaptation,
and if the girl is meant to be a parody of James Bond.
