The First Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Tenzing Norbu Mysteries) [Paperback]

Gay Hendricks (Author), Tinker Lindsay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2012 | Series: Tenzing Norbu Mysteries

“Don’t ignore intuitive tickles lest they reappear as sledgehammers.”

That’s the first rule of Ten.

 

Tenzing Norbu (“Ten” for short)—ex-monk and soon-to-be ex-cop—is a protagonist unique to our times. In The First Rule of Ten, the first installment in a three-book detective series, we meet this spiritual warrior who is singularly equipped, if not occasionally ill-equipped, as he takes on his first case as a private investigator in Los Angeles.

Growing up in a Tibetan Monastery, Ten dreamed of becoming a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. So when he was sent to Los Angeles to teach meditation, he joined the LAPD instead. But as the Buddha says, change is inevitable; and ten years later, everything is about to change—big-time—for Ten. One resignation from the police force, two bullet-wounds, three suspicious deaths, and a beautiful woman later, he quickly learns that whenever he breaks his first rule, mayhem follows.

Set in the modern-day streets and canyons of Los Angeles, The First Rule of Ten is at turns humorous, insightful, and riveting—a gripping mystery as well as a reflective, character-driven story with intriguing life-lessons for us all.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Tibetan monk, turned LA cop, turned PI — it’s nothing less than one would expect from a successful relationship expert’s first mystery novel — and it’s a perfect choice to launch Hay House’s new mystery imprint, Visions. Ten is the book’s protagonist (the rules are his). He has a cat named Tank, an ex-girlfriend he calls “she-who-hates-cats”, and he often chooses a cold beer instead of meditation to reduce stress. His spiritual insights run as a sub-theme in his mind, as he chases bad guys and looks for clues. He models himself after Sherlock Holmes (his childhood idol) and has a Dr. Watson style computer-jockey sidekick named Mike.

 

The action begins when a casual visitor to Ten’s residence turns up dead. Just days after leaving the LAPD, Ten becomes immersed in unraveling the crime and adjusting to being an outsider to his former law-enforcement family. Subtly laced with drugs, sex, and ex-rockers, in addition to a compassionately rendered supporting cast, this one is a page turner with a broad potential audience.

 

With more books already in the pipeline for the Tenzing Norbu series, customers will want to get to know this new-millennium Magnum/Rockford-style gumshoe as soon as possible. Tell them not to wait for the movie; this is a perfect post-holiday indulgence.

Anna Jedrziewski

New York, NY

New Age Retailer

(soon to be Retailing Insight)

 

“Awareness and adventure go hand-in-hand in this wow of a whodunnit. It’s got plenty of surprising plot twists, but even better, it’s rich with insight into the complexity of human relationships and being alive in this modern-day world. What could be better?”

 

— Geneen Roth, author of Women, Food and God

“Talk about a ‘perfect Ten!’ Savvy, sharp, and spiritual, Tenzing Norbu is one of the most compelling detectives I’ve encountered on the page. And The First Rule of Ten is a great introduction—a complicated, involving story that combines cults, crime, and Buddhist teachings to great effect.”

 

— Alison Gaylin, Edgar-nominated author of Hide Your Eyes, Heartless, and You Kill Me

“Now this is a detective for the 21st century! Who could resist a former Buddhist monk who lives by the dharma, drives a vintage yellow Mustang, eats five-star vegan PB&J’s, and enjoys a close relationship with a sentient being named Tank—a blue Persian of a certain size? On the other hand, his relationships with beings of the human persuasion aren’t nearly so smooth. Which is great for a P.I.—no one messes with Ten—but lousy for romance. Tenzing Norbu is wholly original and very, very real—a great addition to detective fiction. The First Rule of Ten has really got me hooked!”

 

— Julie Smith, author of the Skip Langdon series

About the Author

Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., has served for more than 35 years as one of the major contributors to the fields of relationship transformation and body-mind therapies. Along with his wife, Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks, Gay is the co-author of many bestsellers, including Conscious Loving and Five Wishes. He is the author of 33 books, including The Corporate Mystic, Conscious Living, and The Big Leap. Dr. Hendricks received his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Stanford. After a 21-year career as a professor of Counseling Psychology at the University of Colorado, he and Kathlyn founded The Hendricks Institute, which offers seminars worldwide.

In recent years, Dr. Hendricks has been active in creating new forms of conscious entertainment. In 2003, along with movie producer Stephen Simon, he founded The Spiritual Cinema Circle, which distributes inspirational movies to subscribers in 70+ countries, www.spiritualcinemacircle.com. He has appeared on more than 500 radio and television shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show and 48 Hours and is regularly featured on national stations like CNN and CNBC.

 

Tinker Lindsay is an accomplished screenwriter, author, script consultant, and conceptual editor. A member of the Writer’s Guild of America, Independent Writers of Southern California, and Women in Film, she has worked in the Hollywood entertainment industry writing and developing feature films for over three decades. Her books include The Last Great Place and My Hollywood Ending. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in English and American Language and Literature and completed a post-graduate course at Radcliffe College in Publishing Procedures. A practitioner and teacher of meditation, she can usually be found writing in her home office situated directly under the Hollywood sign. 

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Hay House Visions (January 1, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781401937768
• ISBN-13: 978-1401937768
• ASIN: 1401937764
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (191 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Mystery/Romance/New Age Mashup: A Pleasant Entertainment February 25, 2012

By M. J. Sweet VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

The idea of an ex-Tibetan Buddhist monk as an LA detective seemed too cool to pass up, since I like mysteries and have had a longstanding personal and academic interest in Tibet. This book turned out to be quite different from what I expected. Our hero, Tenzing "Ten" Norbu is a 30 year old former monk, born to a Tibetan father and an American-turned-Parisian mother--at the beginning of the book he quits the LAPD to become a P.I., and becomes immediately embroiled the fast-paced and varied plot: murders, environmental crimes, a sinister religious cult and more. Ten is a sensitive, New Age kind of guy with intimacy issues, and has an up-and-down romance with an improbably beautiful and talented girl friend. While the authors get some basic concepts of Buddhism right, their take on Tibetan culture is rather shaky: for example, they think Tibetan tea contains milk and sugar (it is actually made with tea, butter, salt and baking soda), and talk of a monastery as having several abbots (there is only one). More seriously, they add some of the mumbo-jumbo that has too often been associated with Tibet, endowing Ten with psychic abilities, purportedly learned at his monastery; he also has telepathic conversations with his cat, and with his friends back in India (Skype would have been easier). This is all nonsense of course--hopefully, readers will recognize it for the fantasy that it is. I did find it a pleasant light read (skipping over some of the New Age therapeutic and romance parts). However, I still await the great Tibetan-American detective novel--hopefully written by a Tibetan-American or someone close to the culture and the community, who can present Tibetan characters of greater believability than the charming and likeable but mostly generically Californian Ten Norbu.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Really Fun Read - Ten Makes Mindfulness Real December 21, 2011

By EOC

Format:Paperback

This book is a really fun read and a serious page turner. I especially love that the main character, Ten, is self-aware yet easily relatable to all of us who have our heads in the clouds but still have our feet planted firmly on the ground.

25 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly good mystery! January 5, 2012

By Marlene @ Reading Reality

Format:Paperback

The First Rule of Ten by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay is a surprise. It is surprisingly good. There are a lot of things about this mystery that are unconventional, including the detective it introduces, but I was hooked from the first page.

Tenzing Norbu ("Ten" for short) grew up wanting to become a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. The ambition would not have been that far out of the ordinary, if it weren't for the location where Ten did that growing up. Ten spent his formative years in a Buddhist monastery in Dharamshala, India, where his father expected him to become a monk, just as he was. The fact that Ten was the product of his father's impulsive middle-age marriage to an American college dropout attempting (and failing) to "find herself" on a trip through India (and Europe) didn't seem to matter to his father's plans. Nor did his father understand what role Ten's mother's wanderlust, or her influence, might have had in his makeup.

Not to mention, eight-year-old boys are lousy at obeying mindless rules, never mind teenagers. Ten just wasn't cut out to be a monk. He wanted to be a detective, even if he had no real clue what that meant. But he tried to please his father.

An intervention from a lama when Ten turned 18 sent him to the Buddhist Cultural Center in Los Angeles on an exchange program. From there, his journey took him to a GED program, US Citizenship, and eventually, the LAPD.

But several years after making detective in the police department, Ten is no longer satisfied. He still enjoys police work, what he hates is paperwork, meetings and rules. Most of the same things he disliked in the monastery.

As The First Rule of Ten opens, Ten is wounded while trying to intervene in a domestic disturbance. For Ten, it is the last in a series of signs that tell him it is time to resign from the LAPD and become a private investigator. So he turns in his paperwork and does just that. Ten tells his partner Bill that the incident was a case of his "cosmic alarm clock" telling him it was time for his "job karma" to change. While this wouldn't work for most people, Bill's "job karma" is part of the reason that Ten is making the switch. Bill and his wife have recently had twins, and Bill wants to move into an administrative job and off the street. Their partnership is breaking up whether Ten leaves or not.

As a private investigator, Ten's first case arrives before he has even hung out his "shingle". A woman comes to his door, looking for the previous owner of his house. She's not looking to hire him, she just wants Zimmy's whereabouts, because she's Zimmy's first ex-wife. But Zimmy used to be a big rock-and-roller before he got clean and sober and left LA, and Ten doesn't provide a forwarding address. He can tell the woman is hiding something, maybe a lot of somethings. But when she turns up dead the next morning -- and not just dead, but tortured before she died -- Ten feels like he owes her for not listening to what was wrong. He didn't want to get involved, and now he's involved. He has a case, even if no one is paying.

Ten believes that if he investigates, someone will eventually pay. And someone does, in more ways than one.

And if you're wondering what the The First Rule of Ten actually is, it's "Don't ignore intuitive tickles, lest they reappear as sledgehammers." Words to live by. Or die by.

Escape Rating A-: I started this one night, and re-surfaced over 100 pages into it. I was amazed at how fast I got sucked into Ten's world and his point of view. He's a fascinating character to follow. He retains just enough of his "outsider" perspective to make his perspective and internal voice different from the run-of-the-mill private eye. His choices work for him, but they wouldn't for another detective. His screw-ups are definitely his own, too.

There's a teaser for The Second Rule of Ten in the back of the book. I don't want just a teaser. I want the whole book!