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A few years ago in Chicago, there was a popular newspaper columnist so full of himself that the alternative paper in town took to writing one-paragraph summaries of his columns under the headline: "Bob Greene: We read him so you don't have to."
It's in that spirit I've been telling people lately about a book I picked up in the lost- and-found bin at the gym a few months ago and worked my way through during occasional encounters with a stationary bicycle to offset my occasional encounters with a bottle of beer.
The book is so stupid and poorly written that I couldn't put it down. It has a dreadful plot, bad dialog and style-less writing. Of course, it's a best-seller. Of course, it's a man's kind of book. Allow me to summarize:
Siblings Dirk Jr. and Summer are on the verge of a momentous discovery while scuba-diving in the Caribbean when the world's largest hurricane blows through and threatens to wipe out the world's first floating hotel and thousands of guests. At the last minute, Dirk Sr., and his sidekick, Giordino, swim through 80-foot swells to attach a cable to a tugboat, narrowly cheating death before rushing back to save Dirk Jr. and Summer, who are down to their last few breaths of air in a diving shell.
Meanwhile, the evil Dr. Specter is secretly building four enormous tunnels under Nicaragua that will divert millions of gallons of cold Pacific water into the warm Atlantic Gulf Stream, touching off a new ice age in anticipation of which the "Red" Chinese have been building millions of miniature heating devices which they will sell cheaply to destabilize the U.S. economy and make Specter a really rich man.
Fortunately, Dirk Sr. and Giordino sniff out the plot and blow up the tunnels just in time, only to discover that Dirk Jr. and Summer are in trouble again, taken hostage by modern-day Druidesses who are going to ritualistically kill Dirk Jr. on a Stonehenge-replica altar because (1) they hate all men and (2) he was about to reveal the biggest secret of all, that Ulysses — that's right, the Ulysses of Greek myth — wasn't Greek at all but a Celt who never saw Troy and didn't get lost, as Homer would have it, in the Mediterranean, but actually wondered all those years in the Caribbean, where his fleet is now buried, Atlantis-like.
Anyway, it all ends happily with Dirk Sr., who once raised the Titanic, unmasking Dr. Specter as the chief Druidess and marrying his (Dirk's) longtime lover, Congresswoman Loren Smith.
There. I read it so you don't have to. Don't ask me how such trash gets published. Don't ask me how I finished. You can summon incredible powers when you're pedaling a stationary bicycle. Anything to take your mind off the fact that you can't breathe.
Just one more thing: The Chicago Bob Greene is unrelated to the Honolulu film critic Bob Green, who is a really good writer.
Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5460.
