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THE BOTTLETOP AFFAIR by Gordon Cotler

THE BOTTLETOP AFFAIR

By

Pub Date: July 15th, 1959
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Lt. Merle Wye, Intelligence Officer (on the basis of 10 language credits in Japanese picked up at Columbia) is given the special if unidentified job of ""stopping Bottletop"", to release his predecessor for the baseball team back on Oahu. Shipped over to the island of Rotohan, Wye learns that Bottletop is one Kobayashi, the last organized resistance in this part of the world, a Coca-Cola filching Jap who on occasion reveals ""the mark of the Samurai""- he scavenges for pate and olives and gefilte fish. Various strategies and manoeuvers fail; the reluctant Roy Tada is planted in the cane fields with the POW's to get a line on the evasive Kobayashi; a can of corn leads and deadends in a convent; the Navy moves in and seems more likely to succeed when Wye, dispirited and desperate, finally locates Kobayashi's hideaway, brings off the surrender with his face and Kobayashi's saved.... Some fresh to funny touches keep this very much alive- say for the audience of Warm Bodies- which might be any man around the house in his fatigues.