Tiger's Tail

By Gus Lee

Book Overview

From the author of Honor and Duty and China Boy comes an ingenious thriller set in Korea in 1973--a gripping story of sorrow, corruption and redemption, with plenty of brawls to boot. A career officer who trained at West Point. The number-one son of a hardworking Chinese family. A soldier still tormented by his tour of duty in Vietnam. Jackson Kan is a man caught in the middle of clashing worlds. Now Kan is bound for Asia once again, this time to the volatile demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. His objective is to track down a missing American investigator, also his closest friend. But in fact, Kan has no idea of the enormity--and the danger--of the mission that awaits him. It turns out that the frigid, barren Korean DMZ is at the mercy of Colonel Frederick LeBlanc, known as the Wizard, a Bible-pounding zealot engaged in his own private, paranoid war on communism. Kan quickly uncovers the depravity and corruption of the Wizard's little empire. But only gradually does he piece together the explosive truth about LeBlanc's secret arsenal--a truth that burns like a fuse between Kan's missing friend and the fragile truce of the two Koreas. . . . Praise for Tiger's Tail " Gus] Lee's narrative is irresistible." -- San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle "A dazzling literary thriller." --Amy Tan "In the manner of Malraux, Greene, and Le Carr . . . A wise and wrenching novel, beautifully told." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345472799
• ISBN13: 9780345472793
• Release Date: March 1995
• Publisher: Ivy Books
• Length: 388 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A very entertaining read!

I served with the U.S. Army a couple of years in Camp Casey, and Gus Lee does a masterful job of describing the bleakness and sadness of Camp Casey and Tongduchon near the Korean DMZ.....also of describing the ever-present threat from North Korea. The "speed bump" analogy was used a lot by those of us who were stationed in Casey. While in Korea, sure would have been nice to have met someone like Jackson Hu-Chin Kan. Following Jackson's adventures through the Seoul to Tongduchon corrider was a thrilling experience - also brought back a lot of memories. The chilling filth and terrible conditions in the Korean prison was, no doubt, accurately described.....even nightmarish. The storyline was very interesting, and provided some insight regarding the current and ongoing threat to South Korea and our troops in South Korea. Bravo, Gus Lee!

Off the Beaten Path

Having read mysteries for 30 years I quickly get bored with most of the genre these days and now find myself searching the mystery bookshelves for foreign translations and those not "fitting the mold." Finding Gus Lee's Tiger's Tail has been a delightful venture into Korea's mountainous DMZ and a very strange world of misfits, sadists, and good guys. Lee bounced from the present to his past in a single line that sometimes sent me backtracking and rereading to catch the wit of his metaphors, but I found that delightful as the writing was not the "same old thing." It all seemed pretty horrible and his characters were definitely bigger than life with steroids. Jackson Kan found his buddy and I still had a 100 pages to go as his "mission" kept expanding. I found both the mystery of the Tiger's Tail and the succinct humorous phraseology a really good read that was different than all the others.