This self-styled Surf Noir carries sycophantic cover blurbs from Elmore Leonard and Robert Stone - odd when you consider that it's a classic case of half-baked plot served-up in barely functional prose.

Ike Tucker leaves the desert for Huntington Beach, to look for his sluttish sister and those who maybe murdered her. They, inevitably, are surf-bums, and to get close Ike is going to have to inveigle his way into a close-knit community of druggy sex parties, violence and fucking big waves.

Surf-ingenue head-to-head with ageing pseudo-philosophic boardies is seduced by the life? Don't anyone dare mention Bigelow's gamy Point Break in this company: Nunn wrote this in 1984, and the lack of credit, if anything, goes the other way. But even so, Tapping The Source is certainly no better; it just steals more of your life in the telling. The sort of book where, when asked if you're a surfer, you reply, "I'm just learning". "We are all just learning," comes the beard-scratching retort.

The insipid thriller elements are about a subtle as a tidal wave, while the Zen and The Art of Surf-Bummery (loopers, loomers and malihinis) could scarcely be more rotten from the very mouth of Keanu Reeves himself: "There is an energy in the desert, as there is an energy in the sea." The only thing in its favour is the lack of macho board-bonding and Republican dick-beating from Milius' brain-softening Big Wednesday. Otherwise, one to avoid as though your very life depended upon it.