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The Gates of Exquisite View
(1987)(The second book in the Simon Young series)
A novel by John Trenhaile
Publisher's Weekly
British businessman Simon Young and his Eurasian son Matthew return in this sequel to The Mah-Jongg Spies, as two principals in an outsize cast of international characters. All are struggling to possess the Young company's miraculous computer, Apogee, which can ensure its controlling nation domination over the world. With the People's Republic of China planning to invade Taiwan, Qiu Qianwei of the Mainland Intelligence Agency goes after Apogee and narrowly survives deadly attacks in Thailand and Taiwan. In the Soviet Union, discussions on an alliance with Red China are under way; in Taiwan, sadistic Li Lu-tang holds Mat and his lover Mo Mei-Hua hostages to force Simon into surrendering the computer to the Taiwanese. The prisoners suffer in ''the gates of exquisite view,'' where Li forces them to look at depictions of hideous tortures that they are about to undergo. Along with graphic descriptions of the fates that befall others, these scenes test the reader's endurance. There is rarely a moment to pause for breath between the agonizingly suspenseful events in a thriller that is worthy of its genre.
Library Journal
Readers who enjoyed The Mah-Jongg Spies may be disappointed by this quasi-sequal. The Red Chinese have contracted with an Anglo-Hong Kong capitalist to develop a new computer-based defense system, and then allowed the work to be done in Formosa. When the project is threatened an invasion seems imminent. This overwhelmingly complex story has something for everyone: secret Russia-China accords; KGB aid to Formosan rebels; industrial espionage and capitalist duplicity; impossible derring-do; tangled love stories; and a hero who scales new heights of naive idealism. There's enough plot material in this jumbled mess to support several books; what a pity it has been squandered. John North, LRC, Ryerson Polytechnical Inst., Toronto
Genre: Thriller
British businessman Simon Young and his Eurasian son Matthew return in this sequel to The Mah-Jongg Spies, as two principals in an outsize cast of international characters. All are struggling to possess the Young company's miraculous computer, Apogee, which can ensure its controlling nation domination over the world. With the People's Republic of China planning to invade Taiwan, Qiu Qianwei of the Mainland Intelligence Agency goes after Apogee and narrowly survives deadly attacks in Thailand and Taiwan. In the Soviet Union, discussions on an alliance with Red China are under way; in Taiwan, sadistic Li Lu-tang holds Mat and his lover Mo Mei-Hua hostages to force Simon into surrendering the computer to the Taiwanese. The prisoners suffer in ''the gates of exquisite view,'' where Li forces them to look at depictions of hideous tortures that they are about to undergo. Along with graphic descriptions of the fates that befall others, these scenes test the reader's endurance. There is rarely a moment to pause for breath between the agonizingly suspenseful events in a thriller that is worthy of its genre.
Library Journal
Readers who enjoyed The Mah-Jongg Spies may be disappointed by this quasi-sequal. The Red Chinese have contracted with an Anglo-Hong Kong capitalist to develop a new computer-based defense system, and then allowed the work to be done in Formosa. When the project is threatened an invasion seems imminent. This overwhelmingly complex story has something for everyone: secret Russia-China accords; KGB aid to Formosan rebels; industrial espionage and capitalist duplicity; impossible derring-do; tangled love stories; and a hero who scales new heights of naive idealism. There's enough plot material in this jumbled mess to support several books; what a pity it has been squandered. John North, LRC, Ryerson Polytechnical Inst., Toronto
Genre: Thriller
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