As usual with Japanese-thriller expert Tasker (Buddha Kiss, 1998, etc.), an expat British securities executive, the real fun...
Post-boom malaise leaves Japan vulnerable to empty-headed politics, aging terrorists, and the predations of her big jealous neighbor on the mainland.
Life in the near future is nothing like the ’80s for the Japanese. Lifetime employment is dead, real-estate values have evaporated, and college graduates are shining shoes. One of the few holdovers from sunnier times is the hideously unhelpful government established by the ever-less admired Americans after the war. Locked into an endless cycle of back-scratching, competition-mashing, and guilt-absolving, the iron triangle of politicians, bureaucrats, and big industrialists seems impotent in the face of the financial recession. But at this darkest moment, a political star is rising out of the world of, god help us, pop music. Nozawa, a sort of Nipponese Springsteen with an even larger sense of his mission on earth than The Boss, seems to be pulling together a viable opposition to the historic ruling party. With guidance from his savvy manager, Nozawa has spun the adulation of his fans into political gold. Martine Meyer, stateless polyglot reporter for The Tribune, is one of the few who publicly question the strangely quick rise of the pop star to the top of the power heap. Anonymous but helpful e-mails have combined with her deep reportorial instincts to spur an investigation of the charismatic crooner, a labor that nearly estranges her from her microbrewer boyfriend. As the singer’s sun rises, unsavory events multiply. A black American soldier is framed for murdering a schoolgirl, an American warplane crashes into a city center. Just as Martine is getting a grasp on the story, the new bureau chief is pulling the rug from under her. Will she uncover the machinations of an evil Chinese faction that’s combined with the radical dreams of an aging lady terrorist before Japan blows up?
As usual with Japanese-thriller expert Tasker (Buddha Kiss, 1998, etc.), an expat British securities executive, the real fun is in the superb local scenery, not the heavy-breathing plot.Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 4-7700-2948-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Kodansha
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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