Tapping the Source

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST

A reissue of the classic novel that inspired the movie
Point Break
and pioneered a genre

People go to Huntington Beach in search of the endless parties, the ultimate highs, and the perfect waves. Ike Tucker has come to look for his missing sister and for the three men who may have murdered her. In that place of gilded surfers and sun-bleached blonds, Ike’s search takes him on a journey through a twisted world of crazed Vietnam vets, sadistic surfers, drug dealers, and mysterious seducers. He looks into the shadows and finds parties that drift toward pointless violence, joyless vacations, and highs you may never come down from … and a sea of old hatreds and dreams gone bad. And if he’s not careful, his is a journey from which he will never return.

“KEM NUNN IS ONE OF A RARE BREED, A NOVELIST WHO KNOWS HOW TO PLOT AND TELL A STORY. THERE IS AMAZING ENERGY HERE.” —ELMORE LEONARD

KEM NUNN
spent his youth in Southern California surfing and working on boats and did not go to college to study writing until he was nearly thirty. Nunn now lives in Northern California, where he teaches and writes fiction and screenplays. He is the author of six novels.

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THE SOURCE FOR READING GROUPS

COVER DESIGN BY CHRISTOPHER LIN •

COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY JOE McBRIDE/GETTY IMAGES •

AUTHOR IMAGE BY ULRIKE NUNN •

Praise for
Tapping the Source

“Mr. Nunn can write… . This comes through most clearly in the portrayal of the young hero, Ike Tucker, whose rich internal reflections partially ameliorate the destitution of the external scene.”

—
The New York Times

“Kem Nunn is the bright son of a very good family. His ‘parents’ include Hammett, Chandler, Raoul Whitfield, Paul Cain, James M. Cain, Horace McCoy, and yes, Ross Macdonald. What Kem Nunn has done is what every good parent yearns for and is afraid of: he has surpassed them all.”

—
Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Unique, colorful, suspenseful, and mysterious.”

—Joseph Wambaugh

“Terrific! In the end you feel as if you’ve been dunked underwater by a monster wave and hit in the head by a speeding surfboard.”

—
The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Undeniably chilling.”

—
Booklist

“Riveting … Reads like a streak all the way.”

—
Publishers Weekly

Titles by the Same Author

Unassigned Territory

Pomona Queen

The Dogs of Winter

Tijuana Straits

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1984 by Kem Nunn

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First Scribner trade paperback edition June 2012

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