true-conspiring with this team to create a work worthy of Trevanian has been more fun than a writer should be allowed to have.
The work was nevertheless daunting. I had to re-create the Asia of 1951 and ‘52, a research task that was as rewarding as it was enormous. More complex was the challenge of styling a Nicholai Hel that the reader would recognize as the fully formed man of Shibumi while at the same time writing a character who was twenty-six years old-and a neophyte in the world of espionage-at the time of the story. Then there was the task of trying to blend my own voice into that of Trevanian’s, as well as writing to the “corners” of the story that he had left in place.
All of which is to say that I had a wonderful time writing this book. What a gift I was given from a very brief e-mail on a rainy day in Oxford. I hope that I’ve passed even a small part of that on to the reader.
Don Winslow
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