Does he behave contrary to the author's description?

He doesn't behave in any way at all. Everything is through the author.

It's so very bad.

edit: and in researching this, it turns out the perpetrator is a he, the translator (from Catalan) is a he, and the bio on the author reads as follows:

Day by day he fritters away his vital juices as a government bureaucrat, which brings little light to his life. For a Spaniard raised on the Mediterranean, lack of light is slow death. The author escapes this dire reality by writing fiction.

Ugh. Maybe it was better in Catalan? If so, the translator should be flogged. If not, the writer should be flogged.

Arrrrggh, Deb. I'm so sorry. Burn it, dance around its funeral pyre with a warding spell so that no other such doorstops come your way.

Oh. email. Never mind. You'd have to print it out, and that would be a waste of dead trees. Wouldn't want you to burn your computer.

Still. Some sort of burial-and-no-ressurection ceremony seems in order.

I suspect the translator is the writer's Very Best Buddy, or something.

Yuck.

Tabula rasa.(But you might forget your own stuff, too, that way.)

Omigawd, from the "official" synopsis:

The conflict comes to the boil when he discovers that her family has pledged Amina in marriage against her wishes to an aged desert sheik already four times married. Izzy vows not to allow this to happen and willfully sets about forcing circumstances his way. The rest of the novel charts the hilarious and yet deeply committed actions of the hero as he fights to free his love from her hide-bound family. By forcing the issue, Izzy inevitably leads his love to a tragic end.

An aged desert sheik with four other wives!

Okay, this is sounding more and more like a screenplay for a farce.

Of course she is. And he will sneak in as a groom or something, right?ETA: "Springtime for Osama."

Hilarious, yet deeply committed. And tragic, too!

I wonder if they fight crime?

Izzy vows not to allow this to happen and willfully sets about forcing circumstances his way.

Good! I hate when characters try to force things their way without any will at all.

But only because their hearts are true...they don't even take money for it.