Lustbader—Master of the Orient!—returns stronger than ever with the fourth of the Nicholas Linnear novels (The Ninja, 1980; The Miko, 1984; and White Ninja, 1990), with a fifth promised. Lustbader's dense approach to storytelling lets rich backgrounds support incredible plots and high-tension martial-arts battles. Here, he lavishes even more care than usual on bringing Tokyo, Venice, Paris, and Washington to a ringing life against which his stereotypes leap superhumanly and unload tons of Eastern expertise. Nicholas Linnear, co-owner of the Japan-based Tomkin- Sato electronics corporation, fights the recession by trying to expand the firm's base in Vietnam, where he hopes to make his phenomenal T-PRAM computer chip (it's based on the human brain structure) while being hit with attacks from McCarthy-like investigations by Senator Rance in Washington. Meanwhile, his wife, Justine, takes a passionate distaste for the Japanese following the death of their child and a miscarriage. In the middle of all this, the Kaisho (or Godfather of Japanese criminals) calls upon Nicholas to repay a moral debt incurred by his late father, who—when on General MacArthur's staff following WW II—enlisted the Kaisho's aid in jump-starting democracy in Japan. The Kaisho has moved in on the American Mafia—but an even superior Japanese criminal organization wants to kill the elderly Kaisho while forming a worldwide underworld conglomerate. The Kaisho trusts no one among his own people: Nicholas must find and destroy the assassin, despite his scorn for Yakuza. The assassin, the death-loving Du Doc—a mind-reading Vietnamese of fabulous fighting ability and access to occult areas of martial arts that Linnear himself must now master if he is to meet Du Doc head-on—is one of Lustbader's best villains, his wickedness woven with an erotic mastery that melts all women. Plunging melodrama and poppy dreams of supersex. Superior hokum.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 1993
ISBN: 0-671-86806-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1993
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
