"Move quietly, hit hard"-a lesson learned as a child vagrant under a bridge in Ha Noi, and one that was to serve Hai well as he rose inexorably to the heights of success, in the shadowy world of intelligence and counter-insurgency. Born the illegitimate son of a Vietnamese nobleman in the early years of the twentieth century, Hai suffers under the added burden of a curse at birth that dooms him to 36 years of ill fortune. A born survivor, like the proverbial cat with nine lives, he continually re-invents himself under the French, Viet Minh and Japanese regimes. At thirty-six years of age, he comes into his own and his rise is unstoppable, emerging as the 'Tiger General' in the South Vietnamese Republic, whose gallant alliance with America ended in 1975. Not one to give up, the Tiger moves to Washington as a senior political consultant to continue the fight to bring freedom back to his people. A gripping and unforgettable saga of struggle, bravery, love and loss amid one of the most turbulent periods of the 20th century, by an author who writes with the authority of one who lived through many of the events he describes.