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Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews , January 15, 1992
The Yellow Menace returns in Crichton's shocking, didactic, enormously clever new mystery-thriller--only now he wears a three- piece suit and aims to dominate America through force of finance, not arms. ``The Japanese can be tough,'' says one character here. ``They say `business is war,' and they mean it.'' How much they mean it Lt. Peter J. Smith, LAPD, learns when he's assigned to the murder of an American call-girl at the gala opening of the L.A. high-rise headquarters of the Japanese conglomerate Nakamoto. There, Smith butts heads with men whose alien mannerisms he can't interpret and who insist on their own ``private inquiry.'' Fortunately, he's joined by legendary Japan-savvy cop John Connor, the real hero here, a Holmes to narrator Smith's Watson. At the crime scene and thereafter, Connor, whose love/hate for the Japanese stems from years lived in their land, interprets Japanese ways to Smith: `Control your gestures. Keep your hands at your sides. The Japanese find big arm movements threatening...''
Connor's commentary is always fascinating but, as the serpentine case coils on, numerous instances of Japanese financial dirty dealing are cited by characters who disparage the Japanese sufficiently (``The Japanese don't believe in fair trade at all''; ``Japanese corporations in America...think they're surrounded by savages'') to bathe Smith -and the novel - in xenophobic paranoia: It's not by chance that the only likable Japanese here is a crippled beauty who fled to America because ``to the Japanese, deformity is shameful.'' Crichton's coup is to preach within a breathtakingly supple plot hinging on doctored Nakamoto security videotapes that caught the killer at work, the deciphering of which takes place in lab-set scenes as technologically riveting as the best in Jurassic Park. And as suspenseful--for as Smith closes in on the killer and the huge-money stakes behind the crime, Nakamoto agents threaten his family, his career, and his life. Brilliantly calculated Japan-bashing that's bound, for better or for worse, to attract controversy and a huge readership. (Book- of-the-Month Dual Selection for Spring) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. - This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
Book Description
During the grand opening celebration of the new American headquarters of an immense Japanese conglomerate, the dead body of a beautiful woman is found. The investigation begins, and immediately becomes a headlong chase through a twisting maze of industrial intrigue and a violent business battle that takes no prisoners.
Synopsis
The timely, much talked-about #1 bestseller--soon to be a major motion picture starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes. The international electronics industry is the fiercely coveted prize in this ingenious, riveting murder mystery that unfolds in the arena of volatile Japanese-American relations. "Guaranteed to raise the blood pressure of every American."--San Francisco Chronicle. HC: Knopf.
From the Publisher
An official blurb would probably state how Crichton explores Japanese and USA business relations and uses a thriller storyline to make it interesting. I'll just say that this book had a profound affect on how I viewed American and Japanese cultures and I wasn't thrilled with either one. Some of the story will be dated by the current Asian financial crisis, but this still ranks as one of my favorite Crichton titles.
--Ron Lundquist, Ballantine Sales Rep
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