When Ken disappears, Brendan suspects foul play and decides to help the man he is falling for, Kinosuke, and his friends, find Ken. But when Kinosuke discovers Brendan has been on the senator’s payroll, all bets are off.
Comment: It's practically two years since I've read the first book in the Way of the Yakuza duology by author HJ Brues. I got distracted/occupied with other reads, as usually happens when things gets postponed, but I finally decided to read this second story.
I didn't have high hopes because the majority of opinions was only average but I still felt like reading, especially since some characters would be familiar.
In this second story we focus our attention of Kinosuke, one of the small group's members who traveled to Hawaii with Kenneth Harris at the end of the first book.
The life in the island isn't as easy and laid back as he imagined, despite the dojo they all work in, the established relationships of Shigure and Ken and Tachibana with his wife and the interactions with other members of the community. Kinosuke still feels this isn't the life he imagined.
On the way is Brendan O’Farrihy, an ex SEAL who now works special security, with the task of investigating if the dojo isn't actually a front for a yakuza cell and if Ken Harris isn't there on his free will. However, the more Brendan investigates, the less clear things are so he decides to enroll in classes at the dojo to be closer to their members. He was certainly not counting on liking prickly Kinosuke so much...
In general, this book was as appealing as the first one and the cast of characters extremely interesting to follow. It's actually a very positive aspect that the characters get alive with the words used by the author and that it's so easy to get their emotions and thoughts even with the simplest descriptions.
The interactions between them all, especially when a situation had to be solved or dealt with were very well done too.
I think I understand the lower grades though. I share some other reader's POVs, in particular how the romance between Kinosuke and Brendan wasn't as amazing as it could. It's a fact their relationship progresses very quickly in an initial stage but as the plot moves on, they stop spending as much time together and the conflicts make it easy for them to avoid one another. I liked them together but it's indeed a pity they didn't spend more time together.
In the end, when things are all done and they are on the path to HEA, this actually happens in a very choppy way. Not even the sugary epilogue made it look better.
The plot is all over the place. I liked how the author introduced more characters, not only to help wit the evolution of things but mainly because it allowed the reader to have access to how the tight group of people we already knew would react being side by side with different people.
The problem is that with so many people needing attention, even in the most basic manner, or for the most simplistic reasons, the focus was lost and it got complicated to be always interested in what was happening.
It also didn't help that things dragged. There are scenes and situations that take forever to happen, to be finished... I think a lot of precious time is wasted in unnecessary scenes whereas others are solved too quickly or without the emotional power I expected.
One thing that I liked were the characters we got to meet. This story had room for more romances, I bet so it's a pity the characters spend too much time worrying and describing the things they will do and are doing, instead of moving on or actually doing it on the page.
It feels like there was a lot of attention to things that didn't have to be as detailed and what mattered was just like an add on.
I really expected more from this and although it was a big book, which, in the right way could have been like a very long addiction, it was captivating in some parts, but boring in others.
Nevertheless, it was great to see more of the characters I came to care about from book #1 and for that alone, I'd grade this positively.
Grade: 6/10
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