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Nicholas Linnear #3
White Ninja
"Lustbader has honed the brooding, goose-bumply sensation of sudden, violent death likely to burst out of the darkness at any moment into a unique art form."
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Nicholas Linnear is helpless as he watches his love and his life careen out of control. He has discovered that he is shiro nive , a life of honor and truth amidst greed and corruption. And through it all, stalks a perverse madman through the seamy streets and bureaucratic mazes of Tokyo, destroying anyone who stands in his way, with deadly precision and otherworldly cunning. And the one man who can stop him, Nichaolas Linnear, is shiro ninja.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Nicholas Linnear is helpless as he watches his love and his life careen out of control. He has discovered that he is shiro nive , a life of honor and truth amidst greed and corruption. And through it all, stalks a perverse madman through the seamy streets and bureaucratic mazes of Tokyo, destroying anyone who stands in his way, with deadly precision and otherworldly cunning. And the one man who can stop him, Nichaolas Linnear, is shiro ninja.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 3, 1990
303 people are currently reading
886 people want to read
About the author
Eric Van Lustbader
166 books1,222 followersEric Van Lustbader was born and raised in Greenwich Village. He is the author of more than twenty-five best-selling novels, including The Ninja, in which he introduced Nicholas Linnear, one of modern fiction's most beloved and enduring heroes. The Ninja was sold to 20th CenturyFox, to be made into a major motion picture. His novels have been translated into over twenty languages.
Mr. Lustbader is a graduate of Columbia College, with a degree in Sociology. Before turning to writing full time, he enjoyed highly successful careers in the New York City public school system, where he holds licenses in both elementary and early childhood education, and in the music business, where he worked for Elektra Records and CBS Records, among other companies.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/ericva...
Mr. Lustbader is a graduate of Columbia College, with a degree in Sociology. Before turning to writing full time, he enjoyed highly successful careers in the New York City public school system, where he holds licenses in both elementary and early childhood education, and in the music business, where he worked for Elektra Records and CBS Records, among other companies.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/ericva...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
January 18, 2019
Nicholas Linnear returns to Japan, but finds himself isolated.Meanwhile, he's pursuing a serial killer. To triumph, he has to go back to the past, to unharness the true power of the ninja.
Pretty sleazy.
Pretty sleazy.
March 22, 2021
Books, any kind, don't get any better than this. It's both factual and fictional, although it's impossible to know what's what, of course. But isn't it quite similar even with bona fide documentaries? I'm crying a little inside, knowing I'm almost half way through with the series. And yet, I know I'll be coming back to it many times in the future. It's certainly complex enough it's almost inexhaustible in its scope, detail, and possibility that this reading through, you'll really going to grasp all that's happening. No, you want. Maybe next time.
June 28, 2022
This is the third ((published in 1990) of the six-book series about Nicholas Linnear, The Ninja. The first book, THE NINJA, was published in 1980; the second, THE MIKO, in 1984.
I always come away with insight of all sorts from Van Lustbader’s writings. THE WHITE NINJA was just as suspenseful as the first two books.
I’m anxious to start book four, THE KAISHO (published in 1993). Here are some of the lines that captured me in this continuing saga of love, revenge, crime, suspense (with a lot of Japanese martial arts mysticism):
Seen from a distance, the entire entrance was made up to resemble the inner pedals of an enormous orchid or, if one’s mind ran to such images, a woman’s sexual organ.
At the point of death, he had learned, everything is possible. Once one has stared death in the face, one comes away both with one’s reality shattered and with it automatically reconstructed along different lines. This epiphany—occurred early in his life and changed him forever.
He went to the theater as often as possible. He was fascinated by emotion and all the ways it could be falsely induced. He could have been an actor, but he was not.
Swimming in the heavy sea of memory, he thinks, but there must be an answer. Why did I become what I have become?
His mother had once said to him, Choose your friends with care. These are the people who will talk about you most.
“I love Bryan Ferry, David Bowie, Iggy Pop.”
“Energy is the kick I need with my champagne.”
Roppongi, that glittering section of Tokyo where the foreigner could feel not quite so alien and any Japanese over the age of eighteen was distinctly uncomfortable.
It was like the first golden peach of summer, one that you could not wait to bite into, to taste the sugary, perfumed flesh while the sticky juices ran down your chin.
“In JAPAN, everyone waits for three days in April, for the cherry blossom viewing. During that time the airs is suffused with their perfume. Some go to the parks and the countryside on the first day when the cherry blossoms are in the first blush of youth. Others go the second day, when the vigor of the mature blossoms are at their height, but everyone goes the third day, when like heavenly rain, the blossoms begin to fall. We watch them drift to the earth so that we may not forget the fleeting nature of all of life’s most beautiful creations. We feel both elation and sadness. In Japanese it is called MONO NO AWARE, THE PATHOS OF THINGS.”
In JAPAN, everyone strove to be anonymous, to be a part of the crowd. Everyone wore the same colors, black, shades of gray, shades of white or cream.
We are, each in our own ways, outcasts.
He was known as the Pack Rat because he accumulated contacts and intelligence like others acquired artifacts.
“Work hard, never indulge to excess, above all, be disciplined.”
To learn patience and humility...without these qualities no form of martial arts skill is possible.
The word MICHI means a PATH OR JOURNEY. “MICHI can also mean duty. MICHI is, in effect, Life’s journey. Once begun there can be no turning back.”
There are wo forms of ninjutsu, Red and Black; however, SHIRO NINJA or WHITE NINJA is a ninja who has lost his powers.
It was one of those moments in one’s life that did not last more than a tenth of a second but which seemed to last a lifetime—image imprinted upon the retina, burned upon the brain for all time. They were infinitesimal moments in one’s life—yet charged with such power that they irrevocably changed one’s life.
“I wish I could take your advice.”
“Advice is cheap, even here where everything is expensive.”
“I know. But I value yours.”
“Then take my advice.”
“The human condition is such that life goes on, no matter the depths of despair into which one is plunged.”
A general who finds himself facing an army of superior strength retires from the field of battle because the safety of his forces is paramount. He must either retreat or discover another, unconventional path to victory because a frontal assault will clearly end in disaster.
It is often the case that psychosis has its roots in early family life.
“LIFE controls our karma. Surely our destiny is not in our own hands.”
“When you have returned to a state of serenity, you will be able to see everything in its proper light.”
“Your grandfather was a very wise man. It was he who said one is never truly along in Asia.”
“Now is the time when you must put all your energies into learning, so that by the time you are thirty you will be secure in your career. So that at forty you will have no more doubts about the world. So that at fifty you will know the will of heaven. So that at sixty you will be prepared to heed it. So that at seventy you will be able to follow the dictates of your heart by traveling the path of the righteous.”
Knowledge is strength.
In LIFE, one not only had to cross bridges, but one had to cross them at the proper time.
How often the fear of one evil leads us into a worse. --Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux
The certainty of despair will crush you far more thoroughly than defeat ever could.
“Some believe that Tanjian were the precursors of ninja; that the arcane discipline of Tau-tau is the origin of ninjutsu. But Tau-tau is far more primitive, therefor more powerful in ways a refined discipline such as ninjutsu cannot be.”
We have no power if we cannot use our imagination. Just as we know that the mind-body continuum maintains a balance inside the human shell, so we have learned that power and imagination provide the Way inside the human mind.
Imagination keeps chaos in check, knowing that power with too little imagination is disastrous not only for the perpetrator, but for those around him as well.
“Eating is primitive...like fucking. Do you know how much you can tell about a person by the way they eat? It’s like seeing a film of their childhood, how they were brought up.”
He spent thirty seconds working on slowing his heartbeat and increasing the depth of his breathing. It was crucial now to have this mind absolutely clear.
“I enjoy the rain. It renews flowers that summer’s heat has beaten down.”
People did their jobs more effectively when they were firmly shown their place. Everyone wanted recognition more than anything else. But if you gave them too much, they became lazy, complacent. You had to keep employees on their toes, keep them in obedience school in order to keep them performing at peak efficiency.
He (The Pack Rat) was like Atlas: The more weight he was asked to bear, the better he liked it.
Custom demanded that as the junior man, you much bow that much deeper.
Ice and the fear of death are one and the same. Once you learn not to feel the one, you will not fear the other.
The sky was an opalescent white, giving the impression that he was inside a mass of cartilage, cut off from the rest of the world or in another world altogether. A distant howling told him that wind had sprung up; the first drops of rain, fat and heavy, roughly brushed his cheeks like a dissatisfied lover.
Pachinko, something of a national craze in Japan, was similar to American pinball.
“He doesn’t gamble. He owes no debts, he takes no bribes, he gives his advice feely. He’s unmarried. He’s a prudent man.”
“Limbo is my home. It is a retreat. Think of it as a monastery, a holy place of serenity and of strength. Isn't’ that what you need most now?”
“Loneliness is the only companion a psychopath is able to tolerate.”
Dimly she remembered how often she had dreamed of this moment, never truly believing that it would ever be made real.
This was not a time for definitions or even for absolutes. It was a time of mystery and an acceptance of the unknown, acknowledging not only its existence, but the idea that it existed wholly without answers.
“My husband, as you no doubt know, was a perfectly brilliant surgeon. His hands were like those of a master sculptor, and he obsessed over them. He used more hand cream than I did.”
“He did not want to die. Or, I suppose more accurately, to get old. The parade of women assured him of new faces—and bodies—that, for him, never aged. His women were like a mirror into which he could look, seeing with absolute assurance the man he had once been.”
“Perhaps he needed to hold youth in his hand in what would have been for him a permanent way.”
“TIME is somewhat akin to the ocean. There are ties, currents, eddies which at certain nexus points overlap, creating a kind of whirlpool of events that repeat like ripples until, having spread sufficiently outward, are spent upon a rocky shore.”
“You must understand that your spirit is entangled. You are driven by fear. An exhaustion of the soul has made it impossible for you to distinguish between good and evil.”
“Hate and love are often so close that one cannot tell them apart.”
“An artist often referred to people on the street as cattle grazing in a field. They often had, he maintained, no more conception of what was important or beautiful than did a cow. He was an aficionado of matsuri, meaning one must view it on many levels.”
“Through chaos man had the potential to be godlike.”
“How easily love can be turned to hate. How fragile is existence, that it can be instantly turned inside out! Now the doorway to chaos has been opened. It would take only the smallest nudge to lose it completely.”
“Cycling is a hobby almost anyone can benefit from. But to me it is more. It is a sport: an obsession, perhaps, one could say. My obsession keeps me fit in mind as well as in body. I find that my obsession is akin to meditation: it is in constant motion, providing a cleansing of the spirit.”
“One learns in America never merely to accept an unpleasant situation, but to strive to overcome it.”
Without pain, there can be no pleasure, certainly ecstasy would be entirely unknown, because there would be nothing with which to contrast it.
“Yes, there are many mysteries here that must be unraveled.”
“I always try to read your mind, if not your heart.”
Every once in a while, it occurs to me that I should kill you before you have a chance to destroy me.
“Strategy is useless unless it can be changed. And I’ve changed mine.”
“The BRAIN is a kind of computer whose myriad functions are precisely divided into well-defined sections. A certain section of the brain, for instance, is involved in the formation and maintenance of memory. This area is relatively small. It resides in what Wester science has termed the hippocampus.”
“This is a story that has no end.”
LIFE is rarely so neat and tidy, and the truth was perhaps far more nebulous.
He learned that he could not depend on any one person to answer all the questions crowding his brain.
He ceased to insist on competing in everything, but rather stuck to his areas of expertise. He would much rather practice his martial arts, read, or discuss philosophy, or debate morality.
He bought up other businesses, always at the most strategic time—times of stress for the seller.
The man who fears nothing is as powerful as he who is feared by everyone. --Friedrich Von Schiller
How dangerous it is to make assumptions.
“History is only profitable when one uses it as a lesson for the present.”
There’s an old Japanese saying: “If you fail to kill an enemy, you had better dig two graves.”
“Where there are friends, there are bound to be enemies.”
Each crisis brings its own tea ceremony.
Aikido is an art of concentric circles. It uses an aggressor’s own momentum against him, pulling him in toward you, instead of the more difficult direction, outward and away.
“Friends are too important to lose.”
“Where one finds the truth, it is often dangerous. Often it is better to turn one’s back, to walk away and never look back.”
I always come away with insight of all sorts from Van Lustbader’s writings. THE WHITE NINJA was just as suspenseful as the first two books.
I’m anxious to start book four, THE KAISHO (published in 1993). Here are some of the lines that captured me in this continuing saga of love, revenge, crime, suspense (with a lot of Japanese martial arts mysticism):
Seen from a distance, the entire entrance was made up to resemble the inner pedals of an enormous orchid or, if one’s mind ran to such images, a woman’s sexual organ.
At the point of death, he had learned, everything is possible. Once one has stared death in the face, one comes away both with one’s reality shattered and with it automatically reconstructed along different lines. This epiphany—occurred early in his life and changed him forever.
He went to the theater as often as possible. He was fascinated by emotion and all the ways it could be falsely induced. He could have been an actor, but he was not.
Swimming in the heavy sea of memory, he thinks, but there must be an answer. Why did I become what I have become?
His mother had once said to him, Choose your friends with care. These are the people who will talk about you most.
“I love Bryan Ferry, David Bowie, Iggy Pop.”
“Energy is the kick I need with my champagne.”
Roppongi, that glittering section of Tokyo where the foreigner could feel not quite so alien and any Japanese over the age of eighteen was distinctly uncomfortable.
It was like the first golden peach of summer, one that you could not wait to bite into, to taste the sugary, perfumed flesh while the sticky juices ran down your chin.
“In JAPAN, everyone waits for three days in April, for the cherry blossom viewing. During that time the airs is suffused with their perfume. Some go to the parks and the countryside on the first day when the cherry blossoms are in the first blush of youth. Others go the second day, when the vigor of the mature blossoms are at their height, but everyone goes the third day, when like heavenly rain, the blossoms begin to fall. We watch them drift to the earth so that we may not forget the fleeting nature of all of life’s most beautiful creations. We feel both elation and sadness. In Japanese it is called MONO NO AWARE, THE PATHOS OF THINGS.”
In JAPAN, everyone strove to be anonymous, to be a part of the crowd. Everyone wore the same colors, black, shades of gray, shades of white or cream.
We are, each in our own ways, outcasts.
He was known as the Pack Rat because he accumulated contacts and intelligence like others acquired artifacts.
“Work hard, never indulge to excess, above all, be disciplined.”
To learn patience and humility...without these qualities no form of martial arts skill is possible.
The word MICHI means a PATH OR JOURNEY. “MICHI can also mean duty. MICHI is, in effect, Life’s journey. Once begun there can be no turning back.”
There are wo forms of ninjutsu, Red and Black; however, SHIRO NINJA or WHITE NINJA is a ninja who has lost his powers.
It was one of those moments in one’s life that did not last more than a tenth of a second but which seemed to last a lifetime—image imprinted upon the retina, burned upon the brain for all time. They were infinitesimal moments in one’s life—yet charged with such power that they irrevocably changed one’s life.
“I wish I could take your advice.”
“Advice is cheap, even here where everything is expensive.”
“I know. But I value yours.”
“Then take my advice.”
“The human condition is such that life goes on, no matter the depths of despair into which one is plunged.”
A general who finds himself facing an army of superior strength retires from the field of battle because the safety of his forces is paramount. He must either retreat or discover another, unconventional path to victory because a frontal assault will clearly end in disaster.
It is often the case that psychosis has its roots in early family life.
“LIFE controls our karma. Surely our destiny is not in our own hands.”
“When you have returned to a state of serenity, you will be able to see everything in its proper light.”
“Your grandfather was a very wise man. It was he who said one is never truly along in Asia.”
“Now is the time when you must put all your energies into learning, so that by the time you are thirty you will be secure in your career. So that at forty you will have no more doubts about the world. So that at fifty you will know the will of heaven. So that at sixty you will be prepared to heed it. So that at seventy you will be able to follow the dictates of your heart by traveling the path of the righteous.”
Knowledge is strength.
In LIFE, one not only had to cross bridges, but one had to cross them at the proper time.
How often the fear of one evil leads us into a worse. --Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux
The certainty of despair will crush you far more thoroughly than defeat ever could.
“Some believe that Tanjian were the precursors of ninja; that the arcane discipline of Tau-tau is the origin of ninjutsu. But Tau-tau is far more primitive, therefor more powerful in ways a refined discipline such as ninjutsu cannot be.”
We have no power if we cannot use our imagination. Just as we know that the mind-body continuum maintains a balance inside the human shell, so we have learned that power and imagination provide the Way inside the human mind.
Imagination keeps chaos in check, knowing that power with too little imagination is disastrous not only for the perpetrator, but for those around him as well.
“Eating is primitive...like fucking. Do you know how much you can tell about a person by the way they eat? It’s like seeing a film of their childhood, how they were brought up.”
He spent thirty seconds working on slowing his heartbeat and increasing the depth of his breathing. It was crucial now to have this mind absolutely clear.
“I enjoy the rain. It renews flowers that summer’s heat has beaten down.”
People did their jobs more effectively when they were firmly shown their place. Everyone wanted recognition more than anything else. But if you gave them too much, they became lazy, complacent. You had to keep employees on their toes, keep them in obedience school in order to keep them performing at peak efficiency.
He (The Pack Rat) was like Atlas: The more weight he was asked to bear, the better he liked it.
Custom demanded that as the junior man, you much bow that much deeper.
Ice and the fear of death are one and the same. Once you learn not to feel the one, you will not fear the other.
The sky was an opalescent white, giving the impression that he was inside a mass of cartilage, cut off from the rest of the world or in another world altogether. A distant howling told him that wind had sprung up; the first drops of rain, fat and heavy, roughly brushed his cheeks like a dissatisfied lover.
Pachinko, something of a national craze in Japan, was similar to American pinball.
“He doesn’t gamble. He owes no debts, he takes no bribes, he gives his advice feely. He’s unmarried. He’s a prudent man.”
“Limbo is my home. It is a retreat. Think of it as a monastery, a holy place of serenity and of strength. Isn't’ that what you need most now?”
“Loneliness is the only companion a psychopath is able to tolerate.”
Dimly she remembered how often she had dreamed of this moment, never truly believing that it would ever be made real.
This was not a time for definitions or even for absolutes. It was a time of mystery and an acceptance of the unknown, acknowledging not only its existence, but the idea that it existed wholly without answers.
“My husband, as you no doubt know, was a perfectly brilliant surgeon. His hands were like those of a master sculptor, and he obsessed over them. He used more hand cream than I did.”
“He did not want to die. Or, I suppose more accurately, to get old. The parade of women assured him of new faces—and bodies—that, for him, never aged. His women were like a mirror into which he could look, seeing with absolute assurance the man he had once been.”
“Perhaps he needed to hold youth in his hand in what would have been for him a permanent way.”
“TIME is somewhat akin to the ocean. There are ties, currents, eddies which at certain nexus points overlap, creating a kind of whirlpool of events that repeat like ripples until, having spread sufficiently outward, are spent upon a rocky shore.”
“You must understand that your spirit is entangled. You are driven by fear. An exhaustion of the soul has made it impossible for you to distinguish between good and evil.”
“Hate and love are often so close that one cannot tell them apart.”
“An artist often referred to people on the street as cattle grazing in a field. They often had, he maintained, no more conception of what was important or beautiful than did a cow. He was an aficionado of matsuri, meaning one must view it on many levels.”
“Through chaos man had the potential to be godlike.”
“How easily love can be turned to hate. How fragile is existence, that it can be instantly turned inside out! Now the doorway to chaos has been opened. It would take only the smallest nudge to lose it completely.”
“Cycling is a hobby almost anyone can benefit from. But to me it is more. It is a sport: an obsession, perhaps, one could say. My obsession keeps me fit in mind as well as in body. I find that my obsession is akin to meditation: it is in constant motion, providing a cleansing of the spirit.”
“One learns in America never merely to accept an unpleasant situation, but to strive to overcome it.”
Without pain, there can be no pleasure, certainly ecstasy would be entirely unknown, because there would be nothing with which to contrast it.
“Yes, there are many mysteries here that must be unraveled.”
“I always try to read your mind, if not your heart.”
Every once in a while, it occurs to me that I should kill you before you have a chance to destroy me.
“Strategy is useless unless it can be changed. And I’ve changed mine.”
“The BRAIN is a kind of computer whose myriad functions are precisely divided into well-defined sections. A certain section of the brain, for instance, is involved in the formation and maintenance of memory. This area is relatively small. It resides in what Wester science has termed the hippocampus.”
“This is a story that has no end.”
LIFE is rarely so neat and tidy, and the truth was perhaps far more nebulous.
He learned that he could not depend on any one person to answer all the questions crowding his brain.
He ceased to insist on competing in everything, but rather stuck to his areas of expertise. He would much rather practice his martial arts, read, or discuss philosophy, or debate morality.
He bought up other businesses, always at the most strategic time—times of stress for the seller.
The man who fears nothing is as powerful as he who is feared by everyone. --Friedrich Von Schiller
How dangerous it is to make assumptions.
“History is only profitable when one uses it as a lesson for the present.”
There’s an old Japanese saying: “If you fail to kill an enemy, you had better dig two graves.”
“Where there are friends, there are bound to be enemies.”
Each crisis brings its own tea ceremony.
Aikido is an art of concentric circles. It uses an aggressor’s own momentum against him, pulling him in toward you, instead of the more difficult direction, outward and away.
“Friends are too important to lose.”
“Where one finds the truth, it is often dangerous. Often it is better to turn one’s back, to walk away and never look back.”
August 9, 2014
This is the first book I read by Eric Van Lustbader, its the first book I read in the Nicholas Linnear series. I praise the author for explaining certain important plot points from the first two books which helped me understand the history of Nicholas.
I will clearly state I enjoyed this book, I would recommend this book on the basis, It is fun, the plot is so absorbing, you will really feel like you are in this whirl wind adventure which crosses between Japan and America. Its even quite erotic in its description of love affairs. The whole book is well structured and has a brilliant flow.
Its not high literature, it is just high fun, take the book at face value and although its full of sterotypical martial art philosophy, there are some real historical fact which means you will learn some truth regarding Japanese culture. But overall its just a fun book !
I will clearly state I enjoyed this book, I would recommend this book on the basis, It is fun, the plot is so absorbing, you will really feel like you are in this whirl wind adventure which crosses between Japan and America. Its even quite erotic in its description of love affairs. The whole book is well structured and has a brilliant flow.
Its not high literature, it is just high fun, take the book at face value and although its full of sterotypical martial art philosophy, there are some real historical fact which means you will learn some truth regarding Japanese culture. But overall its just a fun book !
February 18, 2009
This book takes about 100 pages or so to get into. Prior to that you want to throw it at a wall. Basically the author took the approach of doing Tom Clancy with ninja. However after about 100 pages you get drawn in. The character of Nangi, an older Japanese man who survived Hiroshima and became a business mogul, was a wonderful character. To truly appreciate this book (and get past the first 100 pages) you need to have studied martial arts at least since the late 80s/early 90s. Only those who know the martial arts culture that flourished at that time and have since continued to study will appreciate the nostalgia this novel gives.
September 4, 2017
This review is short - I picked this up for less than a pound in a second-hand shop. I was robbed. I read this on holiday and finished it out of stubbornness. Lots of uncomfortable sex scenes and long-winded prose. I just didn't enjoy it at all.
September 14, 2019
I first read this series back in the early '90s and I had forgotten much of what occurs. The martial art combat is some of the best I've read. Not sure if I will wait so long to reread this series again. I'd forgotten how much I liked Lustbader's writing.
June 20, 2010
Continuing Nicholas' saga, while still a great book this start to blur and become less cohesive.
May 15, 2023
At this point it's getting hard for me to write these reviews, because a lot of it is repetitive. The characters are essentially different people from the previous book - not in the "characterization includes growth" sense, but in the sense that if you went to Easter Island expecting a moai and instead found a Stonehenge trilithon, you'd have about the same sense of confusion at your experience.
Nicholas Linnear has forgotten how to ninja. He gets his ninja back. In the process he learns "YER A WIZARD, HARRY!" Turns out he's descended from a secret bloodline of super-ninja that originated in Hsia Dynasty China with a mad emperor, and the MacGuffin this time is some emeralds, because if the emeralds are ever separated, the world will end. Except that Linnear deliberately separates the emeralds, and we are told if the total number of emeralds ever drops below nine, the world will end, and six is a very bad number to have. He Hadoukens an immortal superninja off a cliff at the end of the book with nine of them, and keeps six. Because internal consistency is for suckers.
The villain of this one is another psychic superninja who blackmailed Nicholas's brain surgeon into stealing his ninja powers by putting a piece of wire inside his hippocampus to detach the ninja cortex or something equally stupid, then killed his psychiatrist, the surgeon who he blackmailed, his twin sister's first boyfriend, a random exotic dancer... oh, also he's the chief of the Tokyo Metro murder squad, which you'd think, given Japan's workaholic culture (that comes up), would keep him busy by itself. Then he's defeated by his twin sister/psychic twin/lover/I really don't care dressing Linnear in drag, which allows him to get close enough to the villain to Hadouken him with an emerald, at which point he figures out that it was secretly his own ninja master the whole time, guiding this from behind the scenes, so he goes back to Japan and Hadoukens him off a cliff.
This features a whole lot more Computers Don't Work That Way - pretty sure parallel processing doesn't make you immune to viruses, and the description of "watching the virus" made me long for the realism of Lawnmower Man - and the twin sister is a literally unbelievable character, as in nothing she does is even remotely believable and trying to give her her own life story without her brother's life story actually made it harder to believe either of them's life story. Naturally she ends up as First Lady, because sure, why not.
I hated this book.
Nicholas Linnear has forgotten how to ninja. He gets his ninja back. In the process he learns "YER A WIZARD, HARRY!" Turns out he's descended from a secret bloodline of super-ninja that originated in Hsia Dynasty China with a mad emperor, and the MacGuffin this time is some emeralds, because if the emeralds are ever separated, the world will end. Except that Linnear deliberately separates the emeralds, and we are told if the total number of emeralds ever drops below nine, the world will end, and six is a very bad number to have. He Hadoukens an immortal superninja off a cliff at the end of the book with nine of them, and keeps six. Because internal consistency is for suckers.
The villain of this one is another psychic superninja who blackmailed Nicholas's brain surgeon into stealing his ninja powers by putting a piece of wire inside his hippocampus to detach the ninja cortex or something equally stupid, then killed his psychiatrist, the surgeon who he blackmailed, his twin sister's first boyfriend, a random exotic dancer... oh, also he's the chief of the Tokyo Metro murder squad, which you'd think, given Japan's workaholic culture (that comes up), would keep him busy by itself. Then he's defeated by his twin sister/psychic twin/lover/I really don't care dressing Linnear in drag, which allows him to get close enough to the villain to Hadouken him with an emerald, at which point he figures out that it was secretly his own ninja master the whole time, guiding this from behind the scenes, so he goes back to Japan and Hadoukens him off a cliff.
This features a whole lot more Computers Don't Work That Way - pretty sure parallel processing doesn't make you immune to viruses, and the description of "watching the virus" made me long for the realism of Lawnmower Man - and the twin sister is a literally unbelievable character, as in nothing she does is even remotely believable and trying to give her her own life story without her brother's life story actually made it harder to believe either of them's life story. Naturally she ends up as First Lady, because sure, why not.
I hated this book.
February 16, 2021
The story is long and it takes a while to get used to all the characters, but once they are established, you get moving with the story. Here and there the story gets into an eastern philosophy of life or one invented by the author. He definitely knows Japan and some use of the words are very clear and very correct and not really understood by the West save for some interpretation through martial arts, but even that is not the true and total understanding. Example ? Understanding of Kata. Eric explains that very good. The story towards the end is bit tedious because after "the final battle" the storyline lost its energy and I thought it could have ended sooner Nevertheless a good read. Just don't be fooled by the initial start which is extremely sexual - the story as a whole is not like that.
August 30, 2024
He does it again!
I was surprised when I learned that not only did a third book in the Nicholas Linnear series exist, there are 8 😳
I was taken with Ninja and Milo both and it has been no less exciting to read the white ninja.
Lustbader has a way with words, sometimes too generously strewing them in the story, but somehow never boringly?
To be fair The White Ninja holds more magic that the previous two did , a detail that I did not expect and even if it was, for me, less credible in the Linnear world. I was able to accept and enjoy the story, probably because Lustbader has this way with words.
I noticed at least two typo’s in the book, so it could probably use a read through by an editor - at least as a Dane I believe there is a difference between catching a Martin and a Marlin when fishing off Florida’s coast?
I was surprised when I learned that not only did a third book in the Nicholas Linnear series exist, there are 8 😳
I was taken with Ninja and Milo both and it has been no less exciting to read the white ninja.
Lustbader has a way with words, sometimes too generously strewing them in the story, but somehow never boringly?
To be fair The White Ninja holds more magic that the previous two did , a detail that I did not expect and even if it was, for me, less credible in the Linnear world. I was able to accept and enjoy the story, probably because Lustbader has this way with words.
I noticed at least two typo’s in the book, so it could probably use a read through by an editor - at least as a Dane I believe there is a difference between catching a Martin and a Marlin when fishing off Florida’s coast?
September 17, 2022
I love this author.
I think the firs book I read of his was Zhan witch was Briliant. The characters , the Twists ,the Sex he loves to describe...
The Kashio was the first book I read in the Nicholas Linear saga, witch I think is one of the best ever written.
In my opnion the Kashio and White Ninja r the best of the series.
Read it in 1996 I think. Nicholas Linear goes to Japan
Because of his wifes father who is a maneger of a big company.
This Book was superb telling the story of a brother and a sister who become Ninjas and wont to destroy Nicholas Linear.
I think the firs book I read of his was Zhan witch was Briliant. The characters , the Twists ,the Sex he loves to describe...
The Kashio was the first book I read in the Nicholas Linear saga, witch I think is one of the best ever written.
In my opnion the Kashio and White Ninja r the best of the series.
Read it in 1996 I think. Nicholas Linear goes to Japan
Because of his wifes father who is a maneger of a big company.
This Book was superb telling the story of a brother and a sister who become Ninjas and wont to destroy Nicholas Linear.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 18, 2020
This is the only book I've read of the series. This felt slow at first, like it was winding down after the excitement of the previous books.
At times it felt like the author was distracted, when he would begin a story and then delve into the history, before finally returning to his original train of thought.
Glad I finished it, will add the others to my reading list, if only to see if his style of writing is consistent.
At times it felt like the author was distracted, when he would begin a story and then delve into the history, before finally returning to his original train of thought.
Glad I finished it, will add the others to my reading list, if only to see if his style of writing is consistent.
July 28, 2020
The real end of the Nicholas Linnear story.
I have read this trilogy more than once. I feel no need to read the other ninja novels feeling that the author had no real reason to add to this trilogy, it is complete in and of itself, the author has been too commercial at times. I like the sunset warrior series, but not the bourne series. This book has a great deal to say about ninja magic and Japanese culture. Practically a field guide.
I have read this trilogy more than once. I feel no need to read the other ninja novels feeling that the author had no real reason to add to this trilogy, it is complete in and of itself, the author has been too commercial at times. I like the sunset warrior series, but not the bourne series. This book has a great deal to say about ninja magic and Japanese culture. Practically a field guide.
August 19, 2021
I loved the first 2 Eric Van Lustbader Ninja books as a teenager so when I saw this I was so excited. Unfortunately either my tastes have changed over the years or his writing went massively downhill or a combination of both as this was absolute garbage that made completely no sense, was boring in the extreme, taught me nothing about Japan, Ninjitsu or anything, had no tension, no excitement and I should have given up after 50 pages instead of finishing the whole rotten turd.
December 10, 2023
I read this because my dad took the exact same book out at the library to take on holiday with him THIRTY years ago, felt pretty cool to read the literally exact same book when he found it in the library again 30 yrs on with his name still on the stamp on the inside of the front page all these yrs later, either way a really cool read and exciting considering im going Japan next summer!
March 1, 2021
Probably my favorite of the first three books. Like the previous two, a little too gratuitous with the sex for my tastes. I prefer more action. Overall, nice writing style gets the reader into the minds and emotions of the characters.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 28, 2022
Very disappointing -- I read the first 2 Ninja books 30 years ago and enjoyed them a lot. This is a Nicholas Linnear book without much of Nick -- Villain has supernatural powers -- ending was absurd.
March 24, 2020
I can't get enough of this series of books. Each one is better than the one before. I may go back to the beginning and read them all again...
May 10, 2020
Destiny
Enough mystery, action, and twists to keep me reading non stop as the conflict moved to the final confrontation between light and darkness
Enough mystery, action, and twists to keep me reading non stop as the conflict moved to the final confrontation between light and darkness
December 11, 2020
What seemed like a cool-but-hefty ninja action-adventure romp quickly devolved into mere window-dressing for a European's best idea of a hentai. No thanks.
June 24, 2022
Excellent as always must read
May 1, 2024
I read quite a few books from this author and I remember distinctly enjoying them.I would have to read them again, since I forgot almost all of it.
August 2, 2025
my momma always said, "if you're 100 pages in and it doesn't have you, stop. You don't have to read what is, to you, a bad book." I tried. Not my book.
September 30, 2025
This book is a 'Loser'!
* 1 Star.
* 1 Star.
Read
November 30, 2025A good ready, if a little slow at the beginning multiple storylines
May 29, 2020
Was expecting Jason Bourne type of writing. Could not finish. Sorry
January 15, 2023
Durante toda su vida Nicholas ha detentado unos increíbles poderes mentales y físicos. Es un Ninja, pero de pronto y tras una operación pierde esos poderes, convirtiéndose en un Ninja blanco, pasando a depender de Justine y su amigo Nangi.
March 7, 2016
Nicholas Linnear is enjoying life in Japan with his wife Justine. He has surgery to remove a tumor in his brain. Once he wakes up from the surgery, he discovers that all of his ninja training and expertise has been lost to him. This makes him shiro ninja (white ninja) and he has no idea how to recover. Then he discovers that there's a new enemy trying to not only destroy him but destroy all his business interest and friends. He must find a way to overcome his lost ability and defeat his powerful foe.
This is a very well written story with many diverse characters and plot lines. This is a really enjoyable series (even though it sometimes shows it age). Recommend White Ninja to all fans of Lustbader and mystery/thriller stories in general.
This is a very well written story with many diverse characters and plot lines. This is a really enjoyable series (even though it sometimes shows it age). Recommend White Ninja to all fans of Lustbader and mystery/thriller stories in general.
July 14, 2016
As good as it was when I first read it. White Ninja is the third of the first trilogy of the Nicholas Linnear novels. I read them decades ago and even though they're a little dated the drama and tension and adventure is still there. After White Ninja, I stopped reading the Linear novels because my time was extremely limited. However, now I can go back to the subsequent novels and get lost in those as well.
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