The Fifth Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery

by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay

Be mindful, both making and keeping commitments, that they be springboards to liberation, instead of suffering. That's the Fifth Rule of Ten.

Private investigator and ex-Buddhist monk Tenzing Norbu is wrestling with commitments on all fronts. He and his fiancée, Julie, can't seem to commit to an actual wedding date. Ten's dropped the ball on a pledge to find his assistant Kim's missing brother, Bobby. Even his dreams hint at broken vows. And now his best friends, Lama Yeshe and Lama Lobsang, are about to land in Los Angeles with a Tibetan entourage for an unexpected 10-day fund-raising tour, sponsored by the local Buddhist Temple Ten abandoned 12 years earlier. Obligations are piling on, and for the first time in his life Tenzing Norbu is finding it hard to breathe.

Then an anonymous cell phone voice taunts Ten as he waits for his best friends at LAX, a mysterious missive lands in Tenzing's mailbox, and the bloody evidence of foul play on a Griffith Park trail points directly to him. Tenzing knows that something dark is afoot, and the ensuing series of ominous events and disconcerting clues pull Ten into a dark mirror-world of Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He joins forces with Yeshe, Lobsang, his ex-partner, Bill, and his hack-tivist buddy, Mike, to track down the Patient Zero of this epidemic of criminal chaos. In The Fifth Rule of Ten, our hero is forced into a life-and-death battle with a powerful shadow presence whose roots reach way back in time. Tenzing must commit to fully embracing his own past, or lose everything he now holds dear.

• ISBN10: 1781805687
• ISBN13: 9781781805688
• Publish Date: 9 August 2016
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 8 June 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Hay House UK Ltd
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 368
• Language: English

Reviews

[Beth C.]

LA's favorite non-traditional private investigator is back - but he's not doing so well. Still recovering from the events of the last book, Ten is having nightmares, questioning his relationship with his fiance, and expecting guests - friends from the monastery he grew up in. When he opens his mailbox to see a copy of a driver's license for a kid from England, starts having panic attacks, and hears about a strange body outline in the canyon, well...events are set in motion that Ten could never have imagined.

I have been a follower of the Tenzing Norbu series since the first book. They have long intrigued me, with their mix of mystery and mantras (alliteration, anyone?). I like that Ten is constantly evolving - it's never a case of the main character making the same mistakes over and over again in every book. And I *love* his relationships. They both ground Ten and lift him up, much like what happens in the real world.

Having said all of that - there wasn't as much actual "mystery" in this book. Fewer twists and turns, and more situations that seemed inevitable. Maybe because so much of it revolved around Ten and his past - even more than in past books. Some of it seemed, well...a bit convenient. How some things just seemed to fall into place in a way that seemed too easy. However, it didn't detract terribly from the story itself. I read it all and I enjoyed it, and I would happily read a sixth book in the series. I can just hope that the next one doesn't strain credulity to the degree that this one did.