Customer Reviews

Buddha's Money

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

 

 

I really, really like Martin Limon's series and his irrascible protagonists George Sueno and Ernie Bascom. Limon is an extremely talented writer who has not received the attention and acclaim he deserves; he can transport you to a time and place (in this instance, 1970's Korea) and make you feel instantly at home. George and Ernie are military investigators nominally tasked with keeping an eye on the free-wheeling black-market and barter economy outside Korean army bases and insuring US servicemen neither get in too much trouble nor cause too much trouble. Their intrepretation of their role is a lot less rigid than probably what their supervisors had in mind and so they often turn a blind eye to much of what they are supposed to police, nor are they are not above having a good time in the adult wonderland themselves. Their attitude to policing vice outside the army bases is simply a very realistic assessment on their part because there is only so much you can do when a country is flooded with 19 year old soldiers with big paychecks and the local populace is only too accomodating in finding compelling and interesting means to separate them from their money. George and Ernie, two fun rogues if there ever were any, do take their job seriously though. They may not try to fight human nature if a seviceman wants to barter cigarettes for sex, but they do take violent exception to kidnapping the daughters of US servicemen and beating, torturing, and raping the local Koreans.

Our villains in this outing are evil Mongol Buddhists (isn't an evil Buddhist an oxymoron somehow?) and George and Ernie blow out all the stops in this action-packed adventure as they track down and come to grips with their adversaries. I really enjoyed this book and adventuring again with the boys but..........this book is also fairly dark, much darker than the previous two novels. There are some scenes in this book that are very disturbing involving torture and rape of women and children that I found very hard to deal with. George and Ernie also find it hard to deal with these events and very naturally lose much of their light-hearted banter and sense of fun in the face of events. This is actually a grim and disturbing book and while I would recommend the first two novels whole-heartedly I am not sure I would recommend this one to anyone, not because it is a bad book; it definitely is not, it is actually an excellent book. But there should be a big red sticker on this one though that warns of some very disturbing scenes. Granted, half of what is published now is chock full of serial killers and brutal, violent, senseless tortures and gratuitous, gore-spattered homicide of minors. It's not really my cup of tea though and I didn't expect it when picking up this book. I didn't even expect it even while I was reading this book until it actually happened. The acts I am talking about are not gratuitous here, they do propel the plot forward but even so I was deeply bothered. So I give this one four stars. I enjoyed the novel, but am still troubled by events in it, leaving me conflicted. If you love George and Ernie, or are not bothered by violence to women and children, you'll enjoy this novel. Otherwise just be aware that I am putting a danger sticker on what is otherwise a very good book.

Reading both Martin Limon's "Slicky Boys" and "Buddha's Gold" took me back over 20 years. Korea was then, and still is today, a facinating ancient culture while running full out in anarchy.

Limon accurately describes the social tensions and delicate balance between the Koreans and the Americans. Most of the Americans were contemptuous of the Koreans; treating them as a sort of second class citizens in their own country. Meanwhile, the Koreans treated the Americans as foolish, and overgrown children. There were no rules and both sides played the game as it came. The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) was drafted to protect both American and Korean interests, but was frequently referred to as "Screw Over The F'ing Americans."

Special Agents Bascom and Sueno operate in the 'Ville. Itaewon is a real place where sex, booze and even life is cheap. A favorite saying was, "The 'ville ain't no place for amateurs." Limon has caught the flavor, the action and the real world of what life around a US military base really is like. I can hardly wait until Bascom and Sueno get involved in places like "Dog Town," "TDC," Toko-ri and Paju-ri. When that happens, strap in and hang on for a wild ride. Truth is stranger than fiction!

This is the first book I read by Limon. The book has a schizophrenic feel to it.

Most of the book is really an over-the-top caper novel, like an early Ross Thomas or Len Deighton novel set in Asia instead of Europe. It reads great if you don't think about it too much and simply kick back and enjoy the ride. The protagonists are appealing, there is a lot of entertaining local color that is richly drawn, detailed, and seems reasonably authentic. There are a host of entertaining secondary characters who like their counterparts in a Ross Thomas novel are completely duplicitous, and much of the plot consists of the protagonists responding to their plots and double-crosses. If that were all the novel was, I would have given it four stars, and recommended it as a well-written and very entertaining read.

BUT interspersed among the antics of the protagonists and the other characters, there are some really gruesome and completely gratuitous passages involving the kidnap victim. I am pretty thick-skinned, but these were horrifying, so much so that I almost quit and pitched the book into the trash. In the end, I simply skipped them and continued reading. I say gratuitous because as horrifying as they were, they contributed almost nothing to the development of the plot, in the sense that the remainder of the story developed as if they hadn't happened. Bizarrely, even after the protagonists were aware of these unspeakable horrors and had caught up with the perpetrators, they treated them with a certain amount of humorous but wary indulgence, like some of Ross Thomas' protagonists treated the grifters and con-men they came across. These passages are such non sequiturs that they come across like something that might have been inserted by a demented hacker who had gained access to the author's computer just before the manuscript was sent to the press.

Another grating aspect of the plot was that the villains, who according to every single description of them in the book were clearly recognizable as non-Korean, seemed to be able to move as a group around Seoul and indeed Korea without attracting any attention to themselves. Moreover, they dressed distinctly, especially their leader. It wasn't even clear that they spoke Korean. A number of developments that required the villains to operate as a group either in Seoul or in more remote areas where they would probably have come to the attention of law enforcement just didn't seem plausible.

That said, there was enough that I liked about the remainder of the novel, in particular the protagonists, the rich detail and local color, the deftly sketched minor characters, that I have decided to read the remaining novels in the series. From looking at some of the other reviews, it sounds like the consensus is that they are stronger novels than this one, and it was my misfortune to start this series by reading this one. So if you are browsing through Limon's books, and looking for one to start with, don't start with this one.

US army Inspectors George Sueno and Ernie Bascom walk the beat in Itaewon, Seoul's "Neon Supermarket", the pleasure center of Seoul. They get mixed up with Herman "The German" Burkowicz, an army retiree who is living off his pension and his thriving business smuggling Korean antiques out of the country when his adopted daughter is kidnapped by a group of Mongol cultists, who seek a priceless skull supposedly inscribed with a map to Kublai Khan's lost treasures. Unfortunately, Herman doesn't have the skull, which is why he needs Sueno and Bascom.

Martin Limon has put together a story of high adventure, weaving together a tale with more twists than the Korean alleys in which the action is set. BUDDAH'S MONEY is a tightly written, fast-paced, fun-filled romp told in a tough guy style that you're guaranteed to enjoy. I know I enjoyed it.

If you pick up wierd off the wall stuff every so often just so you can leave home a long way behind, this is one of those. I cannot figure out any good reason I picked it up except that it was a wierd shape, a wierd color, and about a wierd place to me --- South Korea in the 1970's....a place and a time I admit I truly just don't care about....which made for perfect escapist reading. A whole new place and I admit, I had never contemplated what being an MP in SoKo in 70's might be like. Funny, fast, although the misogynist attacks and torture of women was over the top and unnecessary.....

First of all I love Martin Limon's books. I think this is a great series and I buy them as soon as they come out. Having said that, Buddha's Money was a bit disappointing. The story was the usual but there was some horrible torture of a little girl. To the point of being repulsive. This just turned me off an otherwise pretty interesting book.

This book was awful. Jade Lady Burning, which was excellent, must have been a fluke. What happened to Ernie?? In Buddha's Money he's a complete bore with a personality of tree bark. Oh...and get this. Midway through the book our heros swim to a mysterious island to fetch a jade buddha skull and they're attacked by a giant sloth. HELLO...giant sloths became extinct in the ice age. Why not just have them be attacked by a sabre tooth tiger? Pass this stinker up..

Limon's two previous books were atmospheric, with sustainable plots, and interesting characters. Buddha's Money retains a bit of the first characteristic and absolutely none of the others. The basic plot premise is absurd, the story is weak, and his "Ernie" character has turned into a pointless idiot!

It's hard to believe that the same author who wrote "Jade Lady Burning" and "Slicky Boys" also wrote this book.

I started to read Buddha's Money anticipating a good adventure & mystery story placed in Korea. My interest turned to distaste and then to anger at the author, when the 11 year old girl is kidnapped, raped, tortured and then murdered. This is followed by the brutalization, rape and murder of 2 more women. I stopped reading the book after Lady Ahn was beaten up and gang raped. The author hasn't constructed a solid mystery that relies on solving the crime, psychological insight into the characters or narrative detail about Korea -- instead he's presented a tale that lives vicariously from savaging a female underclass. I reqret buying the book and would not assign any stars, if the Amazon.com rating system allowed this.

I love this series, but this particular book is just unspeakable. There is an ongoing plot line of the torture, dismemberment (ongoing) and sexual violation of a small girl that is just unbelievable. There is an ethical dimension to writing, as in all things, which in my opinion, this author has violated. I don't think it should ever have been written and I question why it was ever published.