Civilians have always been considered collateral casualties of war, with WW II representing an extreme case where civilian deaths are thought to have exceeded 50 million, due largely to the exploitation of this strategy as a means for hastening the end of conflict. DIVINE TYPHOON touches on the morality and consequences of this brutality. The novel covers a span of five days ending on Sunday, August 9, 1992, the 47th anniversary of the date when America, convinced that Japan remained belligerent in spite of the nuclear havoc inflicted on Hiroshima, dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki. Close to 100,000 civilians lost their lives in the aftermath of that attack. Two of them were the wife and young son of Imoto Tanaka, heir to an extremely powerful and influential Japanese conglomerate. Determined to avenge their deaths, Tanaka bides his time until he can exact a ritualistic revenge involving a nuclear device detonated at 1500 ft. above an American port city.
The story features a disparate cast of characters including the katana Kamitaifun which has a long and storied history as Tanaka's family sword. Forced to relinquish it at the end of hostilities, recovering it is the last step that will unleash his devastating attack. Opposing his extremely sophisticated and precisely crafted plan are two characters least likely to find themselves thrown together. John Stanwick's father was brutally killed at Tanaka's orders so that he could recover the Kamitaifun,whileSheila Ashkenazi is a Mossad agent trying to locate five milligrams of polonium that are missing. . Propelled forward at a breakneck pace, the novel focuses on John and Sheila's attempts to convince the right people that a nuclear attack is imminent, and the frantic effort that has to be expended to thwart it with only minutes to spare.
