Shibumi

Born in the ravages of World War I China to an aristocratic Russian mother and a mysterious German father, raised in the spiritual gardens of a Japanese Go master, he survives the destruction of Hiroshima to emerge as the world's most artful lover and its most accomplished-and highly paid-assassin. Genius, mystic, master of language and culture, Hel's secret is his determination to attain a rare kind of personal excellence, a state of effortless perfection...shibumi. Now living in an isolated mountain fortress with his magnificent Eurasian mistress, Hel faces his most sinister enemy-a supermonolith of espionage and monopoly. The battle lines are drawn: ruthless power and corruption on one side and on the other...Trevanian is the author of 'Shibumi' with ISBN 9780345311801 and ISBN 0345311809.