Hero Bountiful

Ira Nettleman was your ordinary garden variety schnook who had that certain combination of qualities you can only get by crossing Woody Allen with Danny Kaye, and then throwing them into a breeding pool with Lassie, the famous Collie dog. A schnook, definitely, that is, until the Central Intelligence Agency comes calling, and, then, well, that same schnook turns into a delightful butterfly, or, in this case, everyone's hero, a sometimes fumbling, sometimes babbling, sometimes irritating hero who trashes the villains of international terrorism. One after another, right and left, the bad guys fall before Ira's Jell-O-like stature, Qaddafi, Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, and hosts of others; they can never stand against him.