I'm sorry. I had to give up on this one half-way through, and it took me a month to get that far. I just couldn't get into it. I didn't care about the characters and found the plot a little confusing. They were going on a dive to find swords but yakuza were somehow involved and there was a monk who I think was good guy but was in love with a giesha who ended up "owned" by another man. Then that guy ended up dead and I quit reading.
It just wasn't for me....
Excerpt:
A lone figure stood in the estuary lookout nestled in the trees above the North Sea on the Holderness Coast, waiting with restless anticipation as Gwen Gallagher approached the cliff's edge. A quick adjustment to the night-vision binoculars allowed the watcher a closer view of the twenty-eight-year-old secretary as she savored the last autumn sunset she would ever see. The crisp, cool air picked up speed, leaving her long black hair sailing like a ghostly pirate's flag behind her. It lifted the hem of her black skirt slightly, exposing her white shapely legs and black suede booties to the wintry elements. Her pale blue eyes swept across the landscape, appraising the beauty surrounding them. She raised her chin toward the darkening sky and smiled, obviously believing the note she had received, inviting her here, had come from her married lover.
As Gwen moved even closer to the edge, the watcher inhaled a deep breath. All that remained between this ludicrous woman...