I used to hang out there with expat Japanese, and that was where I first heard about ninjas. The curator of Japanese art once directed her and me to the Ronin Gallery. When asked about the books and the journey, he says, “My mother worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (USA). He started the breakout Nicholas Linnear ninja-thriller series after first writing three oriental-fantasy novels. From penning poems as a child of six, to writing for music trade magazine Cash Box as a young man, he moved on to pursue writing as a lifelong career, and now has more than 50 internationally bestselling novels to his name. Lustbader has been writing literally all his life. He was in jail for pirating my books and he wanted me to help out his family.” Lustbader says he first thought of incorporating ninjas in a fantasy setting, but then reconsidered and decided to write about ninjas in a city like New York. He shrugged, and with a twinkle in his eyes, said, “I once got a letter from a guy in Thailand - along with a pirated copy of my book with his photo on it. The first thing I told him was how famous he was among Mumbai’s street book pirates. Author Eric Van Lustbader talks about writing thrillers, taking over the Jason Bourne series, the Nicholas Linnear novels, and more.(Youtube/Open Road Media)Īs luck would have it, I bumped into the man himself at the recently concluded Emirates Literary Festival in Dubai. I picked up a copy, and by the time I had finished reading the first page, I was hooked for life.

Cheap pirated copies of his bestseller, The Ninja, were selling like hot cakes. My first introduction to Eric Van Lustbader was in the most unexpected of places - on Mumbai’s famous book-ridden pavements along Flora Fountain.

The ninja eric lustbader