the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Looking for Crime/thriller novels set in present time revolving around Japanese MA’s culture(or Chinese). I’m currently half throu ‘The 47’th Samurai’ by Stephen Hunter which is good......
More than 30 years ago I read Lustbader’s ‘Ninja’ which I thought was good back then, I’ll try to get my hands on that one again for a reread
Anyone here know of anything similar...?....Much appreciated !

There's not much that is actually good writing, but there are a few..
John Donohue has a series (not my favourite, seems formulaic and pretty stodgy to me, but something to read..) - 'Deshi' 'Tengu' 'Kage' etc
Barry Eisler's 'Rain' series features a half-Japanese half-American ex Marine/CIA hitman who uses Judo and Jujutsu techniques..
EV Lustbader had his NIcholas Linnear 'ninja' series, and a couple others.
There's an American kempo guy who's a former cop and writes similar books, I forget his name gimme a minute. They're all similarly poorly written and fairly predictable.
Then there are a raft of other. even worse things.. which I've forgotten they're so lame. Something like 'white tiger' by a Ms Chen of some sort.. ugh.

Oh, and not modern, but infinitely better is our own Ellis Amdur's 'Girl With the Face of the Moon'. Great book. And he has a new novel out I need to get.

I can recommend Barry Lancet (he has written a few although the only title I recall is Japantown). Well-written and fast-paced but less formulaic than some. The author lives in Tokyo, I believe, so quite accurate in that respect. The Japanese characters are well-rounded and not just foils for the non-Japanese (half-Japanese?) hero.
Shibumi (Trevanian?) is a kind of classic in this genre (although it's not a favourite of mine). It's a bit old, but he wrote a follow-up which featured baji not so long ago.

Tan Twan Eng (The Gift of Rain, Garden of the Evening Mists) - these are literary fiction with extensive flashbacks to the Japanese occupation of Malaysia and both feature martial arts as integral to the plot (especiallythe first). Good writing, quite heavy, dealing with a variety of themes that I couldn't do justice to here e.g. betrayal, collaboration, friendship.

Yours truly also has a series (crime) I'm hoping to bring out later this year set in 1930s Japan. 1&2 are complete, but I want to get no.3 (80% done) finished before releasing them. Obviously, they will be worth reading, too .

Graculus
https://ichijoji.blogspot.com

Thanks guys I will look up the suggested books’n authors....The cheesy, easy and really good ones, all appreciated

Graculus wrote:Yours truly also has a series (crime) I'm hoping to bring out later this year set in 1930s Japan. 1&2 are complete, but I want to get no.3 (80% done) finished before releasing them. Obviously, they will be worth reading, too .

Graculus
https://ichijoji.blogspot.com

that sound really great, hope you’ll lets us know when they’re out....I myself have a couple of half baked plots/stories I’m still molding and will try to put in writing(no not in English )

Finny wrote:There's an American kempo guy who's a former cop and writes similar books, I forget his name gimme a minute. They're all similarly poorly written and fairly predictable.

Loren Christensen. His protagonist is IIRC a vietnam vet who gets caught up in mischief.

Cool, I’ll look it up

If you're OK with a semi-modern fantasy I found these to be fun.

https://www.fondalee.com/books/jade-city/

Thanks, since one of the stories I’m working on(slooowly) dwells into the areas of fantasy/supernatural I will sure have look at Fonda’s books...and she’s an blackbelt martial artist so the action should be good