A double murder is commited on a bride's wedding day and her brother looks for retribution, by traveling to Tokyo and attaining a level of martial arts training. The first Grandmaster book earned Murphy and Cochran a 1985 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, and Murphy's Pigs Get Fat took the same honor the following year.

What follows is the usual "training a soft Westerner in the Eastern disciplines and honor" storyline (with a dash of forbidden romance), culminating in a bloodbath of violent vengeance.Inside Manhattan’s tony Inn on the Park, a bride and groom beamed with the promise of new beginnings. We understand that not everyone can donate right now, but if you can afford to contribute, we promise it will be put to good use. More Hamburger icon An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon. This training goes by awfully quickly, and it's been my experience with the martial arts that proficiency is usually gained over the course of years, rather than weeks, so I was a little disappointed in the reality gap there. He may not have any idea of just what he was getting into when he flew to Japan and ask for help from Nagoya, but he perfectly understood everything when Nagoya and the others finally acknowledged his strength.

His focus on retaliation is clear – until he falls for a woman whose very existence threatens to undo all of his carefully laid plans. The history lesson as Nagoya's back story was also interesting since he had to adjust from having a rich lifestyle to having nothing at all. Though the novel is replete with the usual criminal atrocities, the most flagrant crime is committed by the authors themselves--against the English language. His solo novels include Jericho Day, The Red Moon, The Ceiling of Hell, The Sure Thing and Honor Among Thieves. Also, the heir apparent to the Yakuza, Sato, starts out very antagonistic (to say the least) to Miles, and about 2/3 of the way through the book undergoes an amazing change of heart, which carries the whole outcome of the novel.The relationship between Miles and Tomiko worked well as a line of romance tinged with the potential for tragedy.

Why the Yakuza would spend time, energy, and effort training a rich American boy to be a warrior confounds me and the story never really gives me a good reason. There is something masterful about the way the authors narrated their story and even the way they presented their characters. The plot revolves around the killing of a newlywed couple by the heir to a Mafia family, who is humiliated by being thrown out of the hotel where the wedding reception is being held. First, Miles is a spoiled rich kid who, in the course of events, must prove himself to the members of the Yakuza before they will help him. Our resources are crucial for knowledge lovers everywhere—so if you find all these bits and bytes useful, please pitch in.Lines such as "you had you your chance to go home, little boy" are straight out of any bad Hollywood gangster script. This, to my sensibilities, made the more violent of the action parts seem more gratuitous and/or perfunctory than they ought to have been.