Customer Reviews

Black Heart: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book captures the essence of Lustbader. Tracy Richter encounters the deadliest antagonist ever portrayed in any of Lustbader's novels in his quest to unearth the facts surrounding the death of a presidential candidate. For any martial arts practitioner, I strongly recommend this book for the physical and spiritual aspects of the martial arts and the impact of these on the story line. "Black Heart" is much better than any of the Nicholas Linnear novels which are good in their own right. The character of Tracy Richter bears striking similarities to Nicholas Linnear but is a bit more human and fallible.

Of all of the books that Lustbader writes tying East to West, Black Heart is the best. The story follows Tracy Richter, former special forces warrior and CIA killer. Richter has become a "kingmaker"; a man whose ambition powers the political elite. However, after the suspicious death of the man that he had been grooming for the presidency, Richter is again catapulted into the arena of death and deception that he had so long tried to leave behind.

Black Heart,Like most of Lustbader's novels has a tremendous amount of sex and violence, but beneath that is a serious study of the culture of Cambodia and the political upheavals of the Viet Nam era that created his main characters and their problems.

Lustbaders antagonist, Khieu Soka is an interesting, handsome and talented young Cambodian that is tortured by his past and his inability to integrate the two sides of his personality. Trained as a child to be an intellectual, devout, non-violent Buddhist he is forced as a young teen to become part of the Khmer Rouge and eventually is trained as a deadly assassin.

Black Heart is a wonderful study in what it means to be human and for those interested in Southeast Asian history and culture, this novel is for you.

ISBN 0449202704 - Written in 1982, there are some interesting parallels to current US politics - such as: "Gentlemen, we have seen all too often in recent years the escalation of incidents of terrorism against the United States of America in Iran, West Germany, Egypt and Peru...<snip> And I say to you now, our time is soon coming." This part of the book is well done - one man, using the fear of acts of terrorism on American soil, plans to build and control a puppet government. Had this been the whole book, it would probably deserve a better rating.

Unfortunately, the book is somewhat confusing at first, jumping from the 1960s in Cambodia to the present day (1980s) in the US, with characters whose paths crossed and whose names are somewhat similar (Kim and Kheiu; Sampang and Sokha). Until the author gets around to defining their personalities better, it's just a phonetic distraction. Character development is given less ink than pornographic sex scenes and boring blow-by-blow fights for a majority of the book.

It's remarkably hard to care about most characters and since most of them are dead by the end, it's hardly worth the effort anyway. Harder to understand is the return of Lauren to Tracy Richter's life and how they're proclaiming their love almost instantly. If this is a carry over from a previous novel, it will make sense only if you've read both, which I haven't; otherwise, it's a little romance-novel-ish. Ultimately, Black Heart isn't really good for much - readers looking for the porn parts will be let down by the sheer volume of other junk they have to get through to find them; if you're looking for the fight scenes, the intrigue, the romance, same problem - it's all there, but this book is trying so hard to be a little of everything that it doesn't amount to much of anything. A bad book can still be readable, but bad AND long? Too much effort, too little payoff.

- AnnaLovesBooks

I have enjoyed reading quite a few book by Eric vanLustbader, but "Black heart" was a bit too long to maintain good flow of the plot. There was also a tendency to delve too far into mysticism for the story to be fully plausible. The reference to historic events and the far east is quite unsurpassed.

I've really enjoyed other books by Eric Van Lustbader, but this is definitely my favorite by him, and a favorite out of many I own. I'm a fan of novels full of intrigue which holds my attention rapt, and this one does. It's a long read, around 760 pages, which I also love because it gives time for the various characters and complexities to enfold, and for a world to be created, rich with detail.

It's violent, powerful, intense and yet the character development is well done in the way it emotionally connects you to the characters.

One of the prior reviewers stated that <<readers looking for the porn parts will be let down by the sheer volume of other junk they have to get through to find them; if you're looking for the fight scenes, same thing>> - well, they are right - if you are looking for porn scenes or fight scenes and that's it, then this isn't the right book for you. If you are looking for much more which incorporates pretty awesome fight scenes and sex/sensuality within a pretty complex storyline, then this is more your read... I highly recommend this book.

This book is about a warrior who is now a political operator. When the guy he is in charge of gets killed, he gets dragged back into using his more overt violence oriented skills.

At the heart of the conflict is Asian racism, nationalism and xenophobia, as two antagonists from different countries do not like each other at all. He gets caught in the middle.

Martial arts moves galore, too.

Just read this book recently having gotten a used copy.

The book is overly long. It could be at least 100 pages less in size, and, while the author's knowledge of the specific names of karate and judo moves (etc.)is impressive, it grows a little weary during a fight scene to have each punch and counter-punch described with a text-book name. Also, some of the sex scenes while short in length, are a little too graphic (unnecessarily so). This will offend some.

Still, an interesting read.

I expected an interesting read. This poorly written piece of trash is filled with gratuitous sex, violence, torture and death. It appeals to the lowest instincts of men. It says nothing about the cultural clash of West and East, it's full of clichés. I stopped reading after about 100 pages and took a long shower to try and wash this book from my skin and my mind.
If you find this book, buy it and do humanity a favor, the same one I did: destroy it.