From Publishers Weekly
Lustbader (The Ninja, Shan) seems here to be attempting a combination of Shogun and The Godfather, with some Ludlum tossed in, but it doesn't work. Philip Doss, assassin for a secret U.S. agency, dies in a car wreck in Hawaii. Top Japanese gangsters, a Japanese business cabal and the U.S. agency all try to discover the culprit. Masashi Taki, head yakuza (Japanese Mafia) has plans to bomb China; the businessmen want to recover a secret diary wthat would expose and ruin them; and the secret agency is trying to find a very high-level mole. Doss's son Michael, painter and martial-arts ace, is recruited by his father's boss to solve the mystery, which, we are told in long flashbacks goes back to 1946 occupied Japan. What seems like a cast of thousands thrashes through 40 years of operatic plot that ends with a plop. We move across the Pacific, the past and the present, but the scenery never changes. Even with all the violence, the cardboard characters and inane plot have as much punch as cotton candy.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Product Description
"[A] rewarding thriller...It contains enough twists and genuine surprises to keep the reader racing toward the satisfying final pages."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Although American painter Michael Doss has been schooled in the ancient ways of the warrior, he leads a quiet life. Until the tragic death of his father ignites the warrior spirit in his blood that will not be quenched until he uncovers the secret of his father's enigmatic life. His journey plunges him into a dangerous underworld, where he finds himself in lethal combat with a sinister Japanese organization that is bent on destroying the United States through global economic chaos. Doss is trapped. His only chance for survival is a final confrontation, face to face, with the vile assassin behind it all, Zero.
From the Paperback edition.
