Tiger's Tail

FROM THE PUBLISHER

January 14, 1974. U.S. military prosecutor Jackson Kan is bound for Korea on a civilian passport - the better to make his way in-country, deep and dark, on the riskiest business imaginable. His destination is Camp Casey, a frigid and decrepit outpost on the brink of the DMZ, within spitting distance of North Korea's Inmingun: the fourth-largest, and definitely the angriest, army in the world. As for Jackson Kan, he's not angry yet, but there's plenty troubling him. A moment of brutal truth in the Vietnamese jungle seven years before still robs him of all peace, battering his heart with sorrow and guilt. The closest thing to relief he's experienced in those seven years, his relationship with a green-eyed woman named Cara Milano, hangs by a thread back in San Francisco. And the man he's charged with finding, an American investigator missing for an eternity of six days, is none other than James Thurber Buford - his best friend, the father of his godson, the steadfast witness to his gin-soaked combat fatigue. Now Kan must match wits with Camp Casey's formidable staff judge advocate, the bizarre Colonel Frederick LeBlanc - a white-haired, Bible-thumping patrician whose corruption seems to know no bounds, and may very well extend to murder. For nine years, for reasons unknown even to the Pentagon, LeBlanc - known locally as the Wizard - has remained out on the border, cultivating an inbred colony of minions and staring down the communists he abhors. Against such an adversary Ken's assets are few. Then Kan discovers a dire secret that stretches the odds of finding Buford and getting his team out alive. But Jackson Kan is the number-one son, precious steward of his clan line and no stranger to danger. And at last, he may have picked the right fight.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In the manner of Malraux, Greene and le Carr, Lee-in a wise and wrenching novel, beautifully told-uses the thriller form to explore the human condition. His compass is Army prosecutor Jackson Hu-chin Kan, a Chinese-American who resembles not only Lee himself (both went to West Point) but also Kai Ting, hero of Lee's autobiographical first two novels, China Boy (1991) and Honor and Duty (1994). The setting is an isolated Army base along the DMZ between South and North Korea during the bitter winter of early 1974. Kan has been sent there to find another prosecutor, who's gone missing. Aided by two tough sidekicks, one a woman, he sees his mission expand to include deposing the base's power-mad commander, releasing a Yank soldier from a hellhole of a Korean prison and, as the suspense ratchets up, protecting some nuclear arms from a devilish threat. Meanwhile, Kan faces a personal mission: to come to terms with his killing of a young girl during combat in Vietnam-an incident that has come to signify for him God's utter alienation from humanity. Lee's exploration of contrasting Chinese, Korean and American ways are bold and revelatory. His characters tend to wear white or black hats, however, and he sometimes barely skirts sentimentality. But through vigorous prose that writhes across the page, his vision-daring, deep and unflaggingly moral-comes to vibrant life as he takes Kan on a tense and moving journey toward redemption. (Mar.)

Library Journal

Jackson Kan, first-born son of a Chinese American family and a military lawyer, is sent to a base on the Korean DMZ during the final days of the Nixon administration as part of an undercover legal team. He is there to probe the disappearance of another lawyer sent to investigate the base's senior legal officer, Col. Frederick LeBlanc, a.k.a. The Wizard. Working with two other lawyers-Magrip, a violence-loving Vietnam vet, and Levine, a feminist nuclear weapons expert-Kan gradually uncovers LeBlanc's plans for plunging Korea, and perhaps the world, into war. He, meanwhile, has personal demons to battle, the result of an ill-fated tour of Vietnam and the conflicting demands of his Chinese and American heritages. A gripping, literate military thriller with appeal to genre fans and readers of serious fiction alike. Highly recommended.-Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, Mass.

BookList - Emily Melton

Lee is the author of an outstanding memoir, "China Boy" (1991), and a provocative military novel, "Honor and Duty" (1994). Now he's on to a third book and a third genre--the thriller. The tale stars Chinese American Jackson Kan, a West Point graduate, savvy lawyer, and career army officer. It's 1974, and the U.S. is reeling from post-Vietnam fallout and the Watergate scandal. At the height of the turmoil, the Pentagon sends Kan on a special mission to Korea. His orders are to investigate the corrupt and evil Colonel Frederick "the Wizard" LeBlanc and find a way to send LeBlanc to Leavenworth--or worse--for his multiple high crimes. Second, Kan is supposed to locate fellow army officer Jimmy Buford, who disappeared after flying to Korea to nail LeBlanc. The already demanding mission is further complicated by Kan's overburdened psyche and his unresolved personal problems (guilt over his role in the Vietnam War, guilt over his sins of omission as a Chinese son, a tumultuous love life). Lee's writing is a curious hybrid, interspersing hard-core military jargon and in-your-face violence with often heavy-handed and perhaps intentionally overdone attempts at lyrical descriptive passages. Lee also mixes outrageous humor and larger-than-life characters with piteous victims and situations designed to tug at the heartstrings. An odd, quixotic book that requires flexible, tenacious readers, Lee's latest is compelling, charming (despite the violence), and captivating. A number-one choice for most collections.

Kirkus Reviews

A suspense-free crack at a first thriller from Lee (Honor and Duty, 1993, etc.), in which a US Army captain—dispatched in 1974 to Korea's DMZ in search of a missing comrade—stumbles on crimes greater than kidnapping.

Jackson Hu-chin Kan, a Chinese-born graduate of West Point assigned to San Francisco's Presidio as a prosecuting attorney, is detached to check on the fate of a colleague who disappeared while on a fact-finding mission to the land of morning calm. Although reluctant to leave Cara Milano (the luscious love of his life) and return to Asia (where he suffered a traumatic experience as an infantry officer in Vietnam), Kan goes to the Far East. Once there, he finds the demilitarized zone separating North from South Korea a veritable island of lost souls. Kan (who spends a lot of time agonizing over the fact that he has a foot in two distinctly different worlds) also discovers this hardship post to be in thrall to its staff judge advocate, a messianic colonel named Frederick C. LeBlanc. As the Watergate investigation gathers momentum back in America, Kan locates and anticlimactically frees the abducted officer. Before he leaves for home, however, he decides to take on the sinister LeBlanc. It's well he does because the crazy colonel has stockpiled tactical nuclear weapons and trained a cadre of troops for use in a preemptive strike against North Korea to protect the perceived interests of the white race. Urged on by Song Sae Moon, a lissome shaman, and by an aging sergeant major whom LeBlanc once framed, Kan ("I am of two worlds. You make me feel my past and a connection ancient and strong") stymies the madman and helps keep the world safe for democracy—or at least diversity.

A labored narrative weighted down by a surfeit of East/West musings that, for all their mystic portent, come across as not much more than self-absorbed maunderings.

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