September 1, 2008
The eleventh Path of the Assassin arc begins and ends like the tenth, in the middle of a sex scenario that turns lethally threatening for Hattori Hanzo, the ninja confidante to Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shogun-to-be. Between those violent love-death encounters, however, virtuallythe entirevolume is concerned with the great armed clash between factions for control of Japan, which Koike and Kojima handle with cinematic 'lan, communicating volumes of logistic and strategic information in the dialogue while adroitly shifting visually between interior scenes of planning (the most intimate of these are often spiced with sex) and often turbulent outdoor battle action. Enthralling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)