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The Cutting Season | 
 enlarge | Author: Arthur Rosenfeld
Publisher: YMAA Publication Center
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $9.03
You Save: $12.92 (59%)
New (22) Used (13) Collectible (1) from $8.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 13124
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 306
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1594390827
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781594390821
ASIN: 1594390827
Publication Date: June 25, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: . Ships in a sturdy box with delivery confirmation (in US). Free giftwrap upon request. Brand new, not a used item. Will upgrade to expedited mail within US when ordering any 2 items from us.
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Product Description
Dr. Xenon Pearl cuts brains for a living, and he's as good as it gets. His direct, sometimes abrasive style is forgivable in light of his skill with a scalpel, and tempered by his compassion for his patients and his friends. He is a dutiful son to his widower father, a doting grandchild to a grandfather who was once a rabbi, and he has even met the girl of his dreams. Everything is on-track for this medical golden boy. The other side of this motorcycle-riding, brilliant doctor facade is a side that Xenon (aka Zee) hides even from his father. Secretly trained since childhood by his Chinese nanny, Wu, Tie Mei--herself a martial warrior of shadowy lineage--Dr. Xenon Pearl is also a martial arts expert who loves the sword as much as the scalpel. Through Tie Mei's training of Zee, we see the philosophical and spiritual practice of a warrior, and how it guides his every step. Now his past is showing up to literally haunt him. His dead teacher reappears, reminding him of the warrior lives he has lived before, and demands he fulfill his destiny. Xenon must use his skill with a blade to protect the innocent, face down the Russian mob, protect the blade mistress who loves him, and stay one step ahead of a smart cop; he is set to lose everything unless he can cut just one more time.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
 The Interesting, Cynical, Yet Compelling Story of Dr. Xenon Pearl. August 7, 2008
I really enjoyed this book! Dr. Xenon Pearl is guided by a complex set of morals, mores, and childhood training & inculcation. I won't try to trump the positive remarks of the other reviewers but I was impressed by the detailed descriptions of martial arts use, firearms, and edged weapons. Drawing from his own experience and/or having done his homework Arthur Rosenfeld paints very realistic scenarios and exchanges between his characters and explains them in terms that the layperson can and will easily understand. In my opinion this is an an excellent work of fiction and I can't wait for the next installment.
-- Jeffrey-Peter A.M. Hauck, JD,PI, Entrepreneur, Professional Consultant and Trainer, Former U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Infantry Pathfinder, and 15 year retired Municipal Police Sergeant.
 A Review of the Cutting Season June 27, 2008
Dr. Xenon Pearl is a brilliant young neurosurgeon. He rides around south Florida on a motorcycle and secretly practices an ancient form of martial arts. When he presses an inquiry into the beating death of a 14-year-old boy, he ends up in an escalating battle with the Russian mafia.
The characters are vivid. Rosenfeld opens and transitions between scenes with many unexpected and surprising images. Rosenfeld writes with a skillfulness that parallels the personality of his lead character, meticulously describing such things as neurosurgery, motorcycle repair and swordsmithing.
On one level, The Cutting Season is in the tradition of American action/thrillers: a tight-lipped loner, a beautiful woman, and an array of unappetizing villains. On another level, Dr. Pearl, "Z", is visited by his dead Chinese martial arts trainer who calls him to take vengeance on a variety of wrong-doers and be the warrior he is destined to be through many reincarnations. While Pearl ruminates about life after death and the unseen forces at play in relationships and personality, his metaphysical questions are not resolved. Clearly, the action drives the plot.
If you take the story seriously, there is a moral ambiguity to The Cutting Season that I find difficult to reconcile. While he is in many ways an admirable individual, Dr. Pearl lies and keeps secrets from the people who care about him. His vigilante actions are increasingly violent and not all of this violence is justified by the context. I found it troubling that the spirit of his former trainer would be leading him toward violence and revenge rather than balance and harmonious relationships - another part of the Chinese tradition. Pearl is not a person at peace with himself or his world.
Nonetheless, it tells you something when you are still struggling with a book several weeks after you finished reading it! The Cutting Season is very entertaining and memorable and well worth reading.
 The Cutting Season June 20, 2008
The Cutting Season is a fast-paced mystery involving the brilliant neurosurgeon Xenon Pearl, who is also a skillful martial artist trained in the ancient art of sword fighting. After the son of a Russian mobster dies on his operating table, Xenon becomes intertwined between the spirit world and reality. His former nanny, Wu Tie Mei, begins haunting him, urging him to remember his past lives as a warrior. Zee begins a quest for the perpetrator who killed his patient, which leads him to commit vicious acts of his own and question his sanity. The story will grab you and you won't want to put the book down.
Drop the Kata handbook and have some fun.... June 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Being a martial artist of many years most of the books I pick out are the ones that show techniques etc. For a bit of fun I decided to read a novel about a martial artist. Once I started reading I was hooked right away. The mixture of murder, mystery, ancient chinese rituals, blades .. oh yes wonderful blades .. good v bad and brain surgery. Wait a second brain surgery!! Yes, quite a facinating subject requires the skill, patience and dexterity of a trained martial artist. Rosenfeld actually puts you inside the mind of a martial artist which is quite facinating and sometimes disturbing but always exciting. Pick this book up, relax and enjoy the ride. I'm off to find some more of his novels...
Bill
Renegade Robin Hook With a Sword April 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Mafia intrigue-meets-Precognition and Presentiment-meets-Martial Arts-
meets-vigilantism. Let's just say that Xenon Pearl isn't your standard issue renegade brain surgeon and mystic.
This book is literary smorgasbord and a feast for the imagination. At first I did not believe this was "THE book for me," but those doubts soon faded several chapters deep. Right from the first chapter, I was curious about this "Ze," and more curious about what type of parent would name their child after a noble gas--but that is merely a literary tool to set Xenon Pearl apart from the norm right at the outset, and perhaps a bit contrived, alluding to Ze's noble raison d'etre as "righter of wrongs" in later chapters.
Mr. Rosenfeld writes with aplomb of the mental fortitude and physical stamina expected of a surgeon. Before I realized it, I was sucked into the secret life of Xenon Pearl, who I envision to be part Sonny Barger (a former Hell's Angel), part Taoist mystic, and part Robin Hood--something otherworldly and somewhat outside the definition of a mere mortal; however mortal, the lesson of "power corrupts" is woven throughout the later chapters as Ze believes in the warrior he has allowed himself to become, setting the stage (perhaps one day in a later novel) for a fall, as is wont to happen to individuals who believe they are outside of the standard and accepted codes and precepts in society--or worse--creating their own codes, of which no one can ever abide.
I look forward to the next in the series.
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