From Publishers Weekly
East collides with West--on a battlefield drawn along political, religious and metaphysical lines--in this superior, offbeat thriller set mainly in India, Tibet and Mongolia in 1921. When his 10-year-old son William is kidnapped at knifepoint, semi-retired British intelligence agent Christopher Wylam embarks on a nightmarish search that leads him to a gilded Tibetan monastery complex high in the mountains. William's abduction is bizarrely linked to a prophecy that an incarnation of the Buddha will become rightful ruler of Mongolia and the world. Bolshevik agents and White Russians want control of the young future potentate; so do Tibetan lamas and the British. The plot turns on reincarnation at a couple of key points, yet Easterman ( The Last Assassin ; The Seventh Sanctuary ) provides a cultural context that lends credibility. Christopher's tragic romance with Chindamani, a small, delicate woman whose body sometimes serves as vehicle for an incarnating goddess, makes for erotic, spiritual love scenes. To write about the exotic East without romanticizing is difficult enough, but Easterman goes one better: his suspenseful, beautifully written novel attains some kind of wisdom, an exceedingly rare achievement in an adventure-thriller.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Having spent the "war to end all wars" as an intelligence agent in the Far East, Christopher Wylam returns to England to a young son he does not know and a dying wife. The boy is kidnapped not long after a bond forms between him and his spiritually weary father. When no ransom is demanded, a determined Wylam, acting on information from his former boss, travels to India to recover his son. From there the family is drawn deeply into the political turmoil (aided by the superpowers) raging from Tibet to Outer Mongolia. Returning to an area he knows well ( The Seventh Sanctuary, LJ 3/1/87; The Last Assassin, LJ 7/85), Easterman has woven an exotic and panoramic tapestry of human relationships, and civil and religious conflict. Although the high-level suspense is sometimes weakened with overly dramatic scenes, this novel of a man willing to risk all to regain his family is a solid thriller.
- V. Louise Saylor, Eastern Washington Univ. Lib., CheneyCopyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
