Deze serie volgt het leven van Nicholai Hel, een westerling die in Japan opgroeide en een van 's werelds meest bekwame moordenaars werd. Hel is een genie, een mysticus en een meester in talen en culturen, wiens streven gericht is op het bereiken van een zeldzame persoonlijke perfectie, bekend als shibumi. Zijn reis zit vol met internationale spionage, gevechten tegen machtige organisaties en de zoektocht naar ultieme perfectie.
A westerner raised in Japan, he survived the destruction of Hiroshima to emerge as the world's most artful lover and its most accomplished assassin. His greatest desire is to attain a state of effortless perfection . . . shibumi. But he is about to face his most sinister and corrupt enemy -- a supermonolith of espionage and monopoly bent on destroying him. . . . From the Paperback edition.
A gripping thriller that follows assassin Nicholai Hel across Asia as he fights to regain his freedom. Sugamo Prison, Japan, October 1951. Nicholai Hel has spent the last three years in solitary confinement for the murder of his mentor. A formidable assassin as well as a master of hoda korosu or 'naked kill', he has developed a supreme awareness of the presence of danger. Suddenly offered the chance of freedom, he feels it now as never before... Overseen by Haverford, his American spymaster he must go to Beijing and kill the Soviet Union's commissioner to China. In a landscape primed for war this is a suicide mission he has no choice but to accept. Can Hel succeed in winning his freedom and if so, at what cost? And can he ever achieve his ultimate goal of satori - the possibility of true understanding and harmony with the world?