THE MIKO

by Eric Van Lustbader ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 20, 1984

Despite murky plotting, dreadful/pretentious prose, and tedious chunks of marrial-arts lore, The Ninja (1980) was something of a bestseller--apparently on the basis of sex and gore, along with the general drift (Shibumi, Shogun) towards Oriental exotica. Presumably, then, this lurid/tedious sequel will also do well commercially, though it's even less readable and more unsatisfyingly convoluted. Van Lustbader's hero is again half-Japanese businessman Nicholas Linnear, now fight-hand man to his father-in-law Raphael Tomkin--despite the fury of wife Justine (who still hates Tomkin), despite Tomkin's villainous doings in The Ninja, But then, when Tomkin and Nicholas go to Japan to arrange a super-merger with Sato Petrochemicals, the violence begins once more. Someone is vividly (sliced hearts, chopped-off feet) killing off various employees at the Sato company. Could this have something to do with recent murders within the martial-arts hierarchy--or with the fact that tycoon Sato's new wife is. . . a dead ringer for Yukio, Nicholas' murdered beloved from The Ninja?! It sure could: unbeknownst to Nicholas, Sato's seductive wife Akiko is a ""miko,"" a.k.a. sorceress, with major vengeance motives (as revealed in dense flashbacks). Furthermore, Tomkin then dies--of natural causes (!)--and Nicholas is now head of the conglomerate. So it's up to him to figure out what's going on, with help from some CIA types: they inform him that the Soviets are determined to prevent Sato Petrochemicals from going ahead with ""some form of monumental industrial or resource project""; Akiko may therefore be not only a cultish sorceress but also a KGB agent! Can Nicholas summon up enough karma-ish powers to combat all these evil forces? Well, he'll need some brush-up lessons from his sensei, of course. (""Now that you have found the moonlit path, it is time to use the energy there to conjure up the first superficial stages of the Kuji-kiri."") But eventually he'll survive kidnap and torture and earthquake, winding up in a showdown with a KGB sumai sensei who intones: ""All your ninja acrobatics will avail you nothing. I have the dai-katana."" Only for enthusiastic Ninja veterans--who'll find an ungainly tangle of loose ends along with the porno-sex and ritualistic bloodshed.

Pub Date: Aug. 20, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Villard/Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1984

Categories: FICTION