THE NINTH BUDDHA

by Daniel Easterman ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 22, 1989

Ripping high adventure in 1920 Tibet as a former British spy races to rescue his kidnapped son: a third outstanding thriller from Easterman (The Last Assassin, 1985; The Seventh Sanctuary, 1987). Easterman flexes all of his cliffhanging skills here--and a new range of feeling, too, beginning with the moving opening in which hero Christopher Wylam, returned to England after WW I spying in India, reunites with his young son William. But happiness is short-lived, for suddenly William is snatched by gun-waving thugs. Certain that he'll pick up his son's trail back in India, Christopher flies there only to learn that the boy has been taken to an ancient monastery deep in Tibet. Struggling through a blizzard and an avalanche, accompanied by a young Sherpa--who's later murdered in one of the shocking deaths that grant the plot its dark dramatic density--Christopher at last reaches Dorje-la. And there he finds not only William--whom the monks hold captive in belief that he's the trulku, or incarnate soul, of their first abbot--but also: Christopher's own dad, long thought dead and now revealed as the monastery's current abbot, and also a trulku; an exotic beauty through whom a goddess speaks, and who becomes Christopher's lover; yet another trulku, a boy, the Maidari Buddha, future god-king of Mongolia; and an evil Bolshevik set on ruling Tibet with the Maidari Buddha as his puppet. A deadly secret tunnel, mutant spiders, and a sadistic White Russian general who thinks he's a god himself--these number among the many obstacles that Christopher faces as he chases on into Mongolia to save his son in a quest that climaxes in a prophecy's fulfillment--and in tragedy tinged with bittersweet hope. Not as extravagantly suspenseful as Easterman's first two, but infused with much greater depth of character and, as always, chiseled out in profuse detail by razor-sharp prose. Terrific entertainment overall--a prime addition to a growing set of adventure novels that's among the most captivating since H. Rider Haggard's.

Pub Date: June 22, 1989

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1989

Categories: FICTION