Kisaeng [Paperback]

Marc Olden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1992

About to become the latest victim of Park Song, a sick crime lord with a lust for beautiful women, Tawny DaSilva must rely on the help of New York Police Detective Manny Decker to escape from her captor. Reprint. K.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Despite his firm grounding in Asian culture and the martial arts, and his assured prose style, Olden ( Dai-Sho ) produces here a sordid tale in which the villains are thoroughly detestable and the good guys only slightly less so. Park Song, aka Laughing Boy, is Korea's foremost counterfeiter of American currency and an old nemesis of NYPD detective Manny Decker. As Laughing Boy, he trains young girls, whom he has purchased at white slave auctions, in the ancient art of the Kisaeng (literally, "recreational creature") and brutally murders them after his perverse appetite is slaked. When Decker discovers that the daughter of an ex-lover has been kidnapped specifically for Laughing Boy, his hunt takes him down an international trail of political and police corruption, sexual perversity and intergovernmental back-scratching. The effect of so many hateful, depraved characters is exacerbated by the lack of likable heroes, earmarking this difficult, grim novel for special tastes only.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Writerly thriller from the author of such martial-arts epics as Gaijin, Giri, Oni, etc. Olden is master of swift, fact-crammed prose that gives a surface credibility to plots built entirely on coincidence, the philosophic structure of the Olden universe; and he is superior to just about all thriller writers for knockout characterizations and superbly whimsical dialogue whose menace and tension flatten the reader's nose to the page while snapping his fingers. Here, top Korean counterfeiter Park Song, who has some hundred-dollar plates made by the U.S. Treasury for running off untraceable bills in Asia during the Vietnam War, obsesses on very young girls whom he likes to groom as ``kisaengs'' (Korean for geisha, or ``recreational creature'') and--when he tires of them or lusts for a new sex recreation--to slash with a razor, bite viciously, and join with as or after they die. During the war Park Song met up with Manny Decker's army team and killed them but not their leader. Now Manny is a detective sergeant in the NYPD and Park Song has had Tawny DeSilva, the beauteous teenage daughter of Manny's former lover Gail, kidnapped for transport to Asia along with a cageful of nude teeners. Typical Olden description (of renegade detective Ben Dumas): ``Man had to be anxious around a dude who not only killed people but who'd once strangled a drug dealer's pit bull to death with his bare hands.'' Paced throughout are bonebreaking martial- arts nerve-paralyzers set in odd places such as the kitchen of a fancy Midtown restaurant or in an icy lake. Hard talk and eye-popping characters who cry out for film while satisfying Olden's faithful band of mainliners. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Zebra (September 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821738976
• ISBN-13: 978-0821738979
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,365,611 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars An oldie but goodie, for those who like the genre., March 30, 2008

By 

L. H. Grotti "grolydmd" (TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kisaeng (Paperback)

I discovered Marc Olden at a book exchange. I am a lover of Eric Lustbader's Nicholas Linnear books and Marc Olden is a writer of the same style and genre, international intrigue, martial arts with Asian antagonists. His protagonist in Kisaeng is Manny Decker, who is featured in one other, the most well known of his books, Giri. Both are good reads, fast paced, great development of the characters and international settings. Remember, these books were written in the 80's so the language and politics are almost 30 years old. Recommend all of his Asian titles, Giri and Kisaeng feature Manny Decker, Gaijin and Krait (if you can find it) feature Simon Bender, Dai-Sho and Te (Sword of Vengeance) feature Frank Dipalma and his son Todd.

I gave this book a 4 star rating, it is not as good as Giri which I would give a 5 star rating. The antagonists are just absolute scum of the earth and Park Song, the ultimate slime, tap dances to Fred Astaire musicals?!!!!