There’s a popular website called Chuck Norris Facts that has funny sayings about how tough Chuck is like “When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.” and “There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist.” Well, if Chuck Norris ever met Nicholai Hel, Chuck would beg for mercy after wetting his pants, and then the Chuck Norris Facts website would become Nicholai Hel Facts.

Trevanian introduced Hel in Shibumi in 1979, and Don Winslow gives us a prequel that fills in a major gap of Trevanian’s original. In Shibumi half the book was spent on Hel’s growing up in Japan as a student of the game Go before and during World War II. Then Hel spends several years in prison after the war imprisoned by the American forces. Trevanian told how Hel was finally released after getting an offer to take on a suicide mission for the Americans in return for his freedom, but then we just got an overview of Hel’s career as an international hitman until the story picked up when he was in his 50s.

Winslow takes on the task of telling about Hel’s first assignment, and it’s a doozy. While the Korean War is wrapping up, the Americans need someone to pose as a French gun dealer to murder a Soviet diplomat in Beijing so that they can sow discontent between China and Russia. With his mastery of multiple languages and ability to kill with his bare hands, Hel fits the bill nicely.

In Shibumi Hel was built up into such a superior being that the original book would have been ridiculous if Trevanian hadn’t winked at the reader now and then to let them know that this shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Hel was one of the world’s foremost assassins, a martial arts expert, a former mystic, a master Go player, a world class cave explorer and the world’s greatest lover. (Seriously.) Plus, he also had a proximity sense that allows him to be aware of people and their moods before he can see them.

Winslow tones this down a bit and plays it straighter than the original book. He was also smart enough not to try and match his style to Trevanian’s. Instead, he focuses on delivering the same essence of Hel in a fast paced action story set against political intrigue in Southeast Asia in the ‘50s. It works like gangbusters with a pace so furious that you don’t have time to think about how outlandish the plot is.

And Winslow also dealt with my main complaint from Shibumi which was Hel’s smug and condescending attitude towards almost every country except Japan and his hypocritical stance about materialism. (Guys making fortunes for killing people shouldn’t climb on their moral high horse about how the world is full of ‘merchants’.) While Hel still has the aloof demeanor and attitude, Winslow toned it down so he’s not nearly as annoying.

This was a fast paced and fun international thriller set against the Cold War with a stone cold bad ass main character, and I’d like to see Winslow revist Hel again to tell us more of his story.