Marc Olden's Black Samurai (1974) is a crime thriller novel about Robert Sand, an American GI who is trained by a Japanese samurai master to become the world's strongest fighter. Working alongside a former US president, Sand uses his martial arts skills to thwart a terrorist's plans to massacre an entire American town.
After kidnapping Toki Jakata Bi, the granddaughter of samurai trainer Master Konuma, an American terrorist named Colonel Tolstoy slaughters Konuma and his samurai students during a nighttime raid. Robert Sand is the only survivor, and he vows to avenge Konuma's death. With the help of William Baron Clarke, a powerful former president who has been using Sand as an assassin, Sand travels to Saigon, Paris, and New York, eliminating Tolstoy's men one by one. Despite injuries, Sand perseveres by calling on Konuma's training and his love for Toki. Hours before Tolstoy can launch his assault on the upstate-New York town of Shown, Sand rescues Toki and kills Tolstoy with the special sword Konuma honored him with.
Exploring themes of honor, valor, and resilience, Black Samurai imagines an alternate history in which the traditions of the samurai military caste were carried into the modern era. The novel is the first in an eight-part series released between 1974 and 1975. The book was also the inspiration for a blaxploitation film of the same name, released in 1977.
