Third in the John Eagle Expeditor series.

The opening of this adventure harkens back to the old "yellow peril" tales. An aged oriental mastermind seeks to restore the imperial Chinese glory and (most importantly) unify a global network of Tongs and Traids under his leadership. Fast forward a bit and he's set up a secret facility in the jungles of Indonesia where he is constructing an extremely potent chemical weapon or blackmail purposes.

John Eagle is sent into Indonesia to find out what is going on and -- his speciality -- destroy the facility. He does so handily, losing a few allies along the way (another speciality of his). There is a pretty ingenious torture device graphically used against Eagle's temporary girlfriend. She meets a pretty nasty demise. Also in keeping with the yellow peril literature, it's implied that the inscrutable oriental mastermind escapes. I highly suspect that we will be seeing this guy again some day.

Good action and adventure. The best of the series so far.

Review copyright 2008 J. Andrew Byers ( )