House of Eight Orchids

Thayer’s ambitious thriller opens promisingly with the kidnapping of five-year-old John Burke Wade and his two-year-old brother, William, both children of the American consul in Chongqing, China, in 1912. Taken to the House of Eight Orchids, John is educated by the eunuch Chang Tao, a much-feared, powerful criminal, who grooms John to become his successor. For 25 years John robs and murders for Chang, until, at a pivotal moment, John is forced to choose between William and Chang, whom he reveres as a father. The ramifications of John’s decision take him across China, where he encounters, among others, dangerous warlords, a Chinese woman who has become a Hollywood starlet, a female missionary doctor from Idaho, a colony of lepers, and American servicemen. The overly lengthy and convoluted plot, however, makes following John’s journey tedious. Readers will wish that Thayer (Ringer) had cut down on the story’s many often-superfluous twists and turns. (Jan.)