Open Road Integrated Media released the first three titles in Eric Van Lustbader's Nicholas Linnear series this week as ebooks.
Born to a British army officer and a Chinese refugee, Nicholas Linnear grows up in Japan, where he adopts the nation's culture, its history, and most especially its deadliest martial arts. The first book in the series, The Ninja, was originally published in 1980. Five more titles were written featuring the character with the most recent being published in 1995.
Here are the titles released this week in ebook format; click on the covers or title links to purchase from Amazon.com:
The Ninja: Raised in Japan by a British father and a Chinese mother, young Nicholas Linnear felt at home only in the dojo, where he gave himself over to mastering ninjutsu—the ancient art of the ninja. Over years of training, he ascended to the highest ranks imaginable until a confrontation over the very meaning of ninjutsuchanged his approach to martial arts forever, sending him on a journey that would take him across the globe.
After years of success in the advertising business, Linnear quits his job abruptly when he feels himself yearning for the life he led in Japan. Searching for direction, he meets a striking beauty named Justine and is beginning to fall in love when something chilling draws him back into his past: the corpse of a coworker, murdered by a Japanese throwing star. There is a ninja loose in New York City, and as the body count rises, it becomes clear that people close to Linnear are being targeted. Only he has the skill to stop a twisted killer with a personal vendetta.
The Miko: When his best friend dies under suspicious circumstances, martial arts expert Nicholas Linnear vows revenge. But although he may look American, a childhood spent in the dojos of Japan taught Linnear that vengeance must never be hurried. He takes a job for the billionaire industrialist who ordered the murder, planning to befriend his target during a trip to Tokyo. But even for a modern-day ninja, there is such thing as too close for comfort.
In Tokyo, Linnear finds far more to worry about than the intricacies of Japanese business. He is being pursued by a miko: a female assassin, part ninja and part sorceress, whose beauty is matched only by her skill in combat. Drawn into a tangle of corporate intrigue, international espionage, and hedonistic sex, Linnear will have to put revenge on hold if he is to leave Japan alive.
White Ninja: A sadist haunts the back alleys and sex clubs of Tokyo, picking up women, horrifically mutilating them, and leaving behind a calling card written in blood: This could be your wife. He kills fearlessly, certain the police will never catch him.
The only man who might stop this fiend is Nicholas Linnear, a martial arts expert whose childhood education in the dojos of Japan has made him one of the country's leading practitioners of ninjutsu. But Linnear fears that his illness may have left him Shiro Ninja—stripped of his power and discipline. With the killer growing increasingly more brazen, Linnear must summon all his strength and training before his own family becomes the next target.
