Rating: **** 4 stars

Chris Bradford,
Young Samurai: The Way of the Warrior
Puffin.

Ages 10-14

Set in seventeenth-century Japan, this action-packed adventure and homage to the martial arts is sure to find an avid readership.

Having been shipwrecked off the coast of Japan, the Alexandria falls prey to a pirate attack. On board ship are John Fletcher, pilot, and his young son, Jack. With his dying breath, Jack's father entrusts his son with keeping safe his rutter, a book that contains all the information needed to circumnavigate the world. Jack just manages to hide it on his body when he too is attacked. His aggressor - also his father's killer - is a ninja pirate with a single, emerald-green eye.

Jack is left for dead. On regaining consciousness, he discovers that he has been rescued, his saviour a legendary samurai warrior called Masamoto. Convalescing, he makes the acquaintance of the beautiful Akiko, who helps him to learn the ways of Japanese society, and Yamoto, who bears him a grudge. Masamoto, impressed by his courage, adopts him and sends him to a samurai training school, where he learns the art of fighting, the value of friendship and the limits of endurance - but also, what it is to be bullied.

The story brims with energy, suspense and thrilling, if violent, action. The author's enthusiasm for his subject and his knowledge of the martial arts are impressive while the book's larger historical and cultural context is fascinating. Enriching the story proper are descriptions of landscape and architecture, references to feudal warlords and Jesuit priests, and, above all, explanations of the philosophy underpinning the samurai way of life.

Threads of the storyline are introduced from the opening pages - there's the rutter and its significance, the ninja pirate whose presence looms large, and, of course, Jack's unhappy predicament as foreigner and, at times, outcast. Yet since only one of these themes is resolved, I eagerly await the next book in what looks set to be an accomplished and exciting trilogy.

Anne Faundez