A compelling economic theory wrapped in a shopworn plot.
In Kingston’s debut thriller, an American investigates a secret society that controls Japan’s economy.
Economist Scott Maxwell is attempting to devise a quantitatively precise metric that captures trade imbalances between the United States and Japan. In the process, he meets Tori Tahashi, a Canadian-Japanese filmmaker whose cousin Sachi Yoshida was murdered by an unknown party. Sachi had been secretly recording the goings-on at the Bonsai Club, an exclusive members-only redoubt in Tokyo that serves as the headquarters of the shakai, a secret society that’s existed since the 12th century and manipulates much of the Japanese economy. The shakai figure out that Tori is in possession of Sachi’s footage, and they send operatives to break into his home and steal it. Scott and Tori join forces to investigate the shakai, and they fly to Japan after Scott’s contact in the CIA provides Tori with false documentation to conceal his identity. Kingston thrillingly chronicles the shakai’s dogged pursuit of the main characters, revealing the group to be essentially a criminal organization with nationalistic objectives—one that’s fully prepared to murder their enemies, if necessary. The narrative also provides a peek into the group’s inner workings as it follows the rise of Akio Morita, a new initiate, through its ranks. However, the novel is mainly a vehicle for presenting a trade-imbalance theory, which the author articulates with impressive clarity; it holds that Japan sneakily subsidizes its exports, manipulating the market and its own currency and thus destroying any possibility of fair trade with the United States. The theory is compelling enough that readers may wish that Kingston had developed it in greater detail, as the rest of the cloak-and-dagger plot is formulaic and unconvincing. Also, the prose style, especially in dialogue, can be breathlessly melodramatic; for example, the Kani, members of the shakai, often speak like comic-book villains: “You have begun to understand the power of the Kani, the responsibility that transcends the individual. You'll soon learn how to call upon this power, as you may one day be called to fight the enemies of the Empire.”
A compelling economic theory wrapped in a shopworn plot.Pub Date: April 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9959542-1-2
Page Count: 278
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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