The Ninja

If there's one book I should absolutely love, it's The Ninja by Eric van Lustbader, published in 1980. It was written during my favorite era for thrillers (late 1970s to early 1980s), and features many of my favorite story elements: ninjas, assassins, eastern mysticism, old vendettas and international intrigue. A New York Times bestseller, the novel was one of the early catalysts (along with the films The Octagon and Enter the Ninja) for the "ninja boom" of the 1980s. Though inexplicably never made into a movie (as discussed in this excellent post), it was the first popular portrayal of ninjas in Western literature (with the exception of Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice, which featured them briefly).

The story concerns the trials and tribulations of Nicholas Linnear, son of an American diplomat and a Chinese mother who grew up in post-war Japan. Linnear was trained in martial arts from a young age, his excellence culminating in him becoming the first non-Japanese allowed to train in the most deadly and secret martial art of all: ninjutsu. But after his parents are killed, the mystically-inclined young warrior moves to the alien world of the USA and has to learn the mysterious ways of the West.

As the story opens, Linnear has quit his job as a successful graphic designer living in New York City, feeling burned out and longing to return to the land of his youth. He meets a beautiful rich girl named Justine who arouses his passion and gives him a new focus, but her relationship to her ruthless billionaire industrialist father, Raphael Tomkin, will soon draw him into a deadly web of intrigue. When a co-worker is found murdered in a mysterious manner, poisoned by a weapon that Linnear is able to identify as a ninja shuriken, Linnear's inner shadow warrior begins to awaken. As more people close to Linnear and Tomkin are killed in exotic and brutal fashion, and it becomes clear that both are at the center of a deadly vendetta, Linnear must call upon all his ninja training to survive.

The plot gets increasingly complex from here, as more characters are introduced  and a backstory involving World War II-era Japanese industrialists, corrupt American officials and a grand conspiracy of industrial espionage and revenge plays out on the streets of New York and the corridors of power in the USA and Japan. We meet the evil ninja Saigo responsible for the killings, and the NYC detective Lew Croaker tasked with investigating them--a tough, cynical bastard who isn't afraid to bend the law to do what's right.

This novel features one of the earliest examples of a trope that would become a cliche: Linnear's boyhood rival in the ninja dojo, Saigo, resentful of the half-breed gaijin, grows up to be a sinister "black ninja" and Linnear's deadly arch-enemy. For me Saigo was the clear star of the story. Though an extremely twisted individual, whose vices include pedophilia, sadism, murder, drug use and hypnotic mind control, he has that relentless, amoral, unstoppable quality that makes characters like Parker or the Terminator so compelling. The climactic finale sets the tone for many classic 1980s ninja films, as Saigo hunts his prey up a skyscraper and the two ninjas meet high above the city to settle their score once and for all.

As awesome as all this sounds, I have to admit that the book's execution was somewhat lacking. The main problem is that van Lustbader's writing is excessive: there's too much descriptive detail, too much literary pretension, too many unlikable characters, too many subplots, too much gratuitous sex, too much soap opera melodrama and too much unconvincing mysticism. What should have been a riveting thriller was too often a pretentious slog. If he had stripped out the excess, cutting off at least 100 pages and making this a much tighter story, he might have produced a classic.

If you want to read a thriller with similar elements by a much better writer that doesn't take itself too seriously, try Shibumi by Trevanian. Or, for a stripped-down, pulpier version of the same basic story, try Ninja Master #5: Black Magician, by Wade Barker.

As it is, I still enjoyed The Ninja for the ninja violence, mysticism, intrigue, and dark, Nietzschean sensibility, but I can't give it my highest rating. Recommended for fans of the genre.

Get a copy of The Ninja here.

The Peking Target

After the over-the-top novel Chant, I was in the mood for something more realistic and better written, but with many of the same elements: 1980s action, a sinister Eastern mystic, martial arts assassins, and an ultra-skilled Western shadow warrior who takes them on. The Peking Target, published in 1982, fit the bill nicely; it's the tenth installment in the brilliant Quiller series by Elleston Trevor (writing as Adam Hall).

As the story opens, "shadow executive" Quiller is watching a body being fished out of the Thames river, which we learn is that of a fellow Bureau operative who had just arrived from Peking with a most urgent and sensitive message for his superiors. Unfortunately, the agent was murdered on his way from the airport and his secret message died with him. Quiller himself is nearly killed when a car rams him as he's leaving the murder scene. It's apparent that something very sinister is going on in Peking, which someone is willing to kill British agents on their home soil to protect. So the Bureau sends Quiller, still banged up from the hit attempt, to China to investigate.

The assassinations escalate dramatically after Quiller arrives in Peking under cover as a security man for the British delegation. The British Secretary of State is blown sky high right next to Quiller during the funeral of the Chinese premiere, his body absorbing the blast and saving the agent from serious injury. Then the American ambassador is taken out, and Quiller evades another murder attempt on the street—only his superior martial arts skill saving him from death at the hands of his skilled assailant. Two more agents are killed just before Quiller can get the information they had about the assassins, one found dead in the coils of his own pet boa constrictor. While all this is going on, Quiller learns that a mysterious figure named Tung Kuo-feng is involved—a Triad leader who commands a team of elite assassins but whose whereabouts is unknown. After the beautiful Li-fei is sent to kill Quiller, thinking that he killed her brother, a Triad assassin, Quiller learns that Tung is holed up in a former monastery on a mountain in a remote part of South Korea.

The novel shifts into overdrive for the final third as Quiller begins his set piece mission: to air-drop near the mountain before dawn, make his way stealthily to the monastery, infiltrate the grounds, take out Kuo-feng and get out without getting killed by his retinue of assassins. It's a tall order, but Quiller is the late 20th century British equivalent of a ninja, so if anyone can do it he can! The mission is further complicated by the assignment of a female guide who is a skydiving expert, mountaineer and fluent Korean speaker, as Quiller normally works alone. As usual with Quiller missions, things go sideways almost immediately and the executive is forced to improvise. Without providing too many spoilers, Quiller faces some brutal adversity but manages to get to the monastery, where he discovers that other world powers are involved who are using the assassinations to spread chaos for a nefarious geopolitical purpose.

This was probably the most fast-paced, action-packed Quiller installment I've read. Quiller is a real ninja in this one, who showcases his impressive range of skills: he kills men with his bare hands (he never carries a gun), evades pursuers by floating under debris on a river, air-drops into enemy territory by night, evades and ambushes a sniper, sends cleverly coded messages to deceive his captors, escapes a cell, sneaks around a well-guarded enemy compound, creates a diversionary explosion, flies a helicopter, and gets into an incredible mental battle with Kuo-fong in which the Triad leader showcases his impressive "ki" powers to try to control Quiller. Though never cartoonish, this one is slightly over the top by Trevor's standards. I suspect he was influenced by the success of Eric van Lustbader's blockbuster 1980 novel The Ninja and similar works of that era, and decided to turn up the ninja elements in this one. There was something in the zeitgeist of the early 1980s that produced a lot of great spy/assassin/ninja thrillers, and this is another one to add to the list. Great read.

Get a copy of The Peking Target here.

Chant

In the 1980s, Asian martial arts and mysticism were a very popular motif in men's adventure books and movies. I have entire shelves of novels from that era about lethal ninja assassins, sinister Eastern mystics and Western martial arts masters trained in the East, often combined with a larger geopolitical narrative involving payback from World War II, the Vietnam War, or the ambitions of  modern-day Japan or China. I am a big fan of this sub-genre, so when I learned about an obscure three-book series about a Western martial arts master and shadow warrior called Chant, I decided to give the first book a read.

"Chant" is the alias of John Sinclair, an almost superhuman character who is like an ultimate 1980s action hero cross between Jason Bourne, Joe Armstrong (American Ninja) and Rambo. His backstory is a familiar one in ninja fiction: a Westerner raised in post-World War II Japan, trained in the most lethal martial arts by Japan's greatest masters, a man so gifted that he is taken as an apprentice by Master Bai, the sinister Sensei of a sect of ninjas who harness the power of the Black Flame—the inner darkness and passion that breaks the bonds of traditional martial arts honor to produce the ultimate human killing machines. Later, Sinclair enlists in the U.S. military, where he becomes an elite commando who puts his skills to work killing Communists behind enemy lines in Southeast Asia. In the process he becomes a revered hero of the Hmong people of Laos, who are fiercely resisting the brutal Pathet Lao guerrillas. For reasons that are unclear, Sinclair is betrayed by his own commanders and attacked by CIA assassins, but he manages to kill them and escape. From that point on, Sinclair is a Jason Bourne-like fugitive from shadowy elements of the US government—a master assassin who has become expendable.

A decade and a half later, Sinclair learns that some of his beloved Hmong have immigrated to the USA, where they are being enslaved and terribly abused by a very nasty family of rich industrialists called the Baldaufs. With his strong sense of honor and loyalty to the Hmong, who saved his life during the war, Sinclair goes on the warpath to destroy the Baldaufs and free the Hmong from their tyranny. Sinclair begins hunting down and killing off the industrialists and their henchmen using his superhuman martial arts skills. He employs the clever stratagem of approaching the head of the Baldauf family in the guise of an operative of a secret US agency that wants Sinclair dead, and is willing to help Baldauf for a fee. Sinclair essentially hunts himself with Baldauf's cooperation, while in the process gaining inside knowledge of the industrialists' operations so he can more effectively sabotage them.

As all this is going on, Master Bai arrives on the scene, having also been hired by Baldauf to find and eliminate John Sinclair. Bai brings with him three gigantic henchmen and his beautiful granddaughter Soussan, who is as lethal as she is seductive. Chant finds himself irresistibly attracted to Soussan, despite knowing that she is probably Bai's ultimate weapon to destroy him. Because Bai is not simply out to kill Sinclair for rejecting the Black Flame cult, but to prove its superiority by defeating Chant in an elaborate mental and martial arts contest. The whole thing gets a little ridiculous at this point, as Chant is challenged to defeat Bai's henchmen, Soussan, and Bai himself, on the threat of his Hmong friends being killed. What follows is a series of staged combats with each henchman, interspersed with Chant's inner confusion about whether Soussan is a sinister seductress or a sincerely changed woman who wants only to be with Chant and leave the Black Flame behind. The twist ending is violent, melodramatic, ridiculous and mystical, much like this book.

Chant is well-written pulp fiction that reminds me of an Eric van Lustbader novel of that era, at a fraction of the length and with the unnecessary subplots and pretentious writing stripped out. Which should make for a good read. And Chant is a pretty good read, if you don't mind characters who are too over the top, too skilled, too good and too evil to take seriously. Sinclair is very impressive, but he lacks charisma and never really makes you care about him—he's like a colder, more brutal and inhuman Mack Bolan. I mean, Mack has no compunctions about blowing away bad guys Dirty Harry-style, but Sinclair takes it to another level, gruesomely murdering people (even puppies!) in a manner usually reserved for villains. He may have a sense of honor, but he also has a streak of Master Bai's Black Flame still burning in his soul that allows him to kill without mercy. Anyway, if you're a sucker for this genre like me you'll probably enjoy this book despite its flaws.

Get a copy of Chant here.

Black Heart

Eric Van Lustbader stormed onto the bestseller charts in 1980 with the publication of The Ninja, a dark, sophisticated, pulpy thriller that perfectly anticipated the obsession with ninjas and all things Japanese in the 1980s. With that novel, Van Lustbader established the elements of a formula that he would cash in on for many years: a Western protagonist schooled in Eastern martial arts, a sinister super-assassin from the East, a global conspiracy rooted in historical events spanning East and West, Eastern mysticism and mythology, martial arts violence, explicit sex, dark psychology, intense romance, and a melodramatic writing style that tries to elevate all of this to high literature. I have to admit, I'm a sucker for this formula.

Van Lustbader's second novel in this vein, Black Heart, published in 1983, is perhaps his  most ambitious. It's a very long (700 pages), complex narrative with numerous threads and characters that span Cambodia in the early 1960s to the USA in the early 1980s, by way of the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. It begins with the assassination of the governor of New York during the throes of sexual passion by a mystic assassin named Khieu. It so happens that the close friend and political advisor of the victim is a man named Tracy Richter, an ex-Special Forces soldier and ex-member of a clandestine outfit called "the foundation". When Richter is informed that the foundation suspects the governor didn't die of a heart attack but was in fact assassinated, he takes it upon himself to solve the mystery and track down the culprit.

As the story unfolds, we learn that there's a sinister network call the "angka" originating with U.S. Special Forces in the Cambodian jungle that by the early 1980s has infiltrated the highest corridors of power in D.C. Among the angka's leaders are the head of  a corporation that develops advanced weapons systems, a senator who is a leading presidential candidate and hardline anti-terrorist, and the director of the CIA. These men are involved in an all-too-plausible conspiracy: secretly sponsoring terrorist attacks around the world in an effort to come to power on an aggressive anti-terrorist platform. They also have connections to Richter, the foundation, and various other players in a way that makes everything very personal.

The main character of this tale is really the assassin Khieu; in addition to his lethal present-day operations as an assassin for the angka, we get many flashbacks to his experiences in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge's brutal rise to power. Van Lustbader explores how a man who began as a humble Buddhist with humanitarian ideals could turn into a murderous revolutionary and finally an almost inhuman mystical assassin. It's an intriguing look into the "black heart" of his antagonist—one of Van Lustbader's main strengths as a writer.

By the last quarter of the book there are so many plot threads running that you almost need a spreadsheet to keep track of them—old vendettas, political agendas, terrorist plots, criminal enterprises, police investigations, romantic dramas, spiritual traumas, family honor—but they all converge toward the end in a suitably dark, violent and mystical climax.

One of the most interesting aspects of this novel for the student of shadow warfare is how Van Lustbader anticipates the "War on Terror" 20 years in advance. The senator's plan to attack terrorists worldwide, invade Islamic countries, take their oil and ensure America's global dominance sounds eerily similar to the program that "neoconservatives" would roll out after 9/11/2001. Black Heart offers a neocon conspiracy that will make "9/11 was an inside job" conspiracy theorists nod in understanding. As the senator muses:

His smile widened now as he thought of 31 August and Macomber's plan. Because of that, there would be no opposition to him at all. By then America would have had its first taste of a terrorist assault on its home soil and it would mobilize.

Gottschalk rejoiced, not only for himself but for the entire country. It was just like the days before America entered World War II: it took great hardship and some loss of life for the sleeping giant to be awakened. But once aroused, Gottschalk knew, no nation on earth could stand before her. Let the terrorists beware. As of this night, their days are numbered. Attacked on its own soil, America could then send out its strike forces into the Middle East, the oil-rich nations of the Gulf, the obliteration of the known terrorist camps, the destruction of already shaky Islamic governments. Oil for the cities of America and, with it, an end to the Soviet Union's stranglehold on much of the world.

In many ways this novel is a re-telling of The Ninja, with a Cambodia/Vietnam War backstory instead of a Japan/World War II one, the dramatic opening assassination of a VIP, the discovery by the shadow operator protagonist of foul play involving an Eastern killing technique, the detective work with a gruff New York cop to identify the assassin, the uncovering of a vast conspiracy by Western industrialists and politicians, the love interest who gets caught up in the plot, the twisted mysticism, horrific violence and extreme sexuality of the villains. Like I said, this was Van Lustbader's formula in the 1980s—it's ambitious, intense stuff, though at times over-written, implausible, melodramatic and pornographic. He easily could have trimmed a couple hundred pages off this novel and made it a tighter read, but in an era when Stephen King, Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy were at the top of the bestseller charts, these fat, complex thrillers were all the rage. And once in a while, if they're well done, they're fun to read. Black Heart is well done; it's 1980s Van Lustbader at his most epic. If the style is to your taste, you should enjoy this novel.

Get a copy of Black Heart here.

Welcome to the Shadow War

Greetings. My nom de guerre is Shadow, I am a student of shadow war, and this is my journal. My interests include: spy/crime/men's adventure fiction, heistology, black ops, assassins, ninjas, prison breaks, survivalism, secret societies, parapolitics, occultism, mind control and dark side philosophy. In this blog I will be reviewing books of interest, reporting on some of my projects and operations, and reflecting on the world from a shadow warrior's perspective. To kick things off, here is my review of a recent read entitled, appropriately enough, "Shadow Warrior #1". Enjoy.

The Hong Kong Massacre (Shadow Warrior #1), by Joseph Rosenberger

At the tail-end of the ninja craze in the late 1980s, the late, great Joseph Rosenberger, author of the incomparable “Death Merchant” series, created the “Shadow Warrior” series, starring 'Shadow Warrior' Scott McKenna. McKenna is essentially Richard Camellion (the Death Merchant) with ninja training: killing machine, master of weapons, stealth and disguise, and mystic warrior with his own code of honor.

Like the Death Merchant novels, Rosenberger loads up the book with technical details. In this case, that means loads of Japanese terminology, ninjutsu techniques and descriptions of ninja weapons. It also means detailed and often amusing descriptions of each kill, complete with the full names of each victim and the particular anatomical deformations they suffer at the hands of the killer-protagonist. It also means references to ninjutsu hokum like kata dan-te, “Dance of the Deadly Hands”, and saimin-jutsu, “Way of the Mind Gate”, that were lifted directly from the writings of ninja LARPer and known lunatic Ashida Kim. But it's all good fun.

Book #1 in the series, The Hong Kong Massacre, concerns the Shadow Warrior's brutal revenge on a a Hong Kong triad gang who killed a close friend. It also recounts the origins of the Shadow Warrior, going back to the fateful day when McKenna, the trust-fund brat son of a diplomat stationed in Japan, calmly informed his parents that he was foregoing college and the Ivy League track to train as a ninja (it was the 1980s, people did things like that).

But the details of the plot are secondary. What matters is they provide a good set-up for maximum ninja mayhem and ultra-violence, sprinkled with Rosenberger's trademark technical details, morbid mysticism, philosophy and humor. The action consists of several set pieces that showcase McKenna's ninja skills of infiltration, disguise, gadgetry and outrageously bold attacks (who but a ninja master could infiltrate buildings full of armed men, kill dozens without firearms and come out unscathed?). If you like ninjas and Death Merchant novels (and what cultured person doesn't?), you're going to love the Shadow Warrior. Recommended for fans of the genre.

Buy a copy of The Hong Kong Massacre here.