The Kaisho (Nicholas Linnear Series #4)

by Eric Van Lustbader

Overview

From New York Times bestselling author Eric Lustbader, the suspense mastermind behind the smash bestsellers featuring Robert Ludlum’s™ Jason Bourne, comes a blockbuster thriller of one man’s debt of honor—and his ultimate destiny.

Years ago, Nicholas Linnear, a.k.a. “the Ninja,” made a promise to his father: If a man named Mikio Okami ever sought his help, he would respond without question, no matter the cost. Now the time has come to fulfill his pledge. Okami is the Kaisho—the boss of bosses of the Yakuza, the Japanese underworld—and in his Venice headquarters, he realizes that he has been marked for death. But the identity of the assassin and the inexorable compulsion that drives him are shrouded in mysticism and madness. Honor bound to protect Okami, Linnear is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice: a descent into a chasm of knowledge so potent, of dangers so unfathomable, that even if he survives, he will emerge changed forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501106118
Publisher:	Gallery Books
Publication date:	02/03/2015
Series:	Nicholas Linnear Series , #4
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	560
Sales rank:	343,533
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Eric Lustbader is the author of nearly forty novels, including the New York Times bestseller The Ninja, which introduced Nicholas Linnear, one of modern fiction’s most beloved and enduring heroes. In 2004, Mr. Lustbader was chosen by the estate of the late Robert Ludlum to continue the Jason Bourne novels, and has published eight international bestselling works to rave reviews. He is also the author of two successful and highly regarded series of fantasy novels, The Sunset Warrior Cycle and The Pearl Saga. He and his wife Victoria are residents of the South Fork of Long Island.

Editorial Reviews

Lustbader ( White Ninja , etc.) brings back Nicholas Linnear in this fast-moving thriller that combines the trademark Lustbader ingredients of Eastern mysticism and international intrigue. Because of a promise made to his father, Linnear finds himself allied to Mikio Okami, the Kaisho, or Godfather of the the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. Linnear's mission is to protect the Kaisho from a Vietnamese assassin who has already eliminated one of Okami's allies, an American mafioso supposedly hidden under the U.S. Witness Protection Program. All of this is the result of an alliance between the Mafia and the Yakuza and machinations of the Looking Glass, a secret organization that has infiltrated the U.S. government and is dedicated to world economic control. But reproducing all the intricacies of Lustbader's plotting would be fruitless; like Robert Ludlum, Lustbader is at his best when he is creating a twisted web of intrigue, violence, double cross and his own brand of oriental esotericism. Here again he proves himself a master storyteller who creates believable characters while juggling numerous plot lines without ever losing the reader's attention. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Lustbader is listed here on the book jacket as "master of the orient," and he lives up to his reputation with a swashbuckling, globetrotting adventure story centering around his Eurasian hero Nicholas Linnear. This is the fourth Linnear book; we've already met, in addition to businessman-adventurer Linnear, his wife, Justine; his Japanese business associate, Tanzan Nangi; and his American private eye chum, Lew Croaker. These characters all find themselves involved separately in a strange plot to eliminate Mikio Okami, the kaisho, or boss of all bosses of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. If that weren't enough, there is the bizarre killing of American Mafioso Dominic Goldoni, which endangers his sister, Margarite, and her daughter. Margarite becomes involved romantically with Croaker, who's taking his orders from big wheels in U.S. intelligence; in the meantime, Linnear's business is in peril from rival Japanese businessmen and an overaggressive senator, while Linnear himself appears to have vanished (he's doing telepathic battle with a trained killer who, like Linnear, has extraordinary power over his mind.) What's good about this novel are the glamorous settings, the psychologically flawed characters (all of them), and the fascinating flashbacks into Vietnam circa 1965 and Japan circa 1947; what's not so good is the overabundance of characters. But it will be snapped up by Lustbader fans.

Joe Collins

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 ofmartial 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.

Kirkus Reviews