Born in the ravages of World War I China to an aristocratic Russian mother and a mysterious German father, raised in the spiritual gardens of a Japanese Go master, he survives the destruction of Hiroshima to emerge as the world's most artful lover and its most accomplished -- and highly paid -- assassin. Genius, mystic, master of language and culture, Hel's secret is his determination to attain a rare kind of personal excellence, a state of effortless perfection... shibumi.

Now living in an isolated mountain fortress with his magnificent Eurasian mistress, Hel faces his most sinister enemy -- a supermonolith of espionage and monopoly. The battle lines are drawn: ruthless power and corruption on one side and on the other... SHIBUMI (a book by Trevanian).