Pacific Burn

December 21, 2015
In Lancet’s exciting third Jim Brodie thriller (after 2014’s Tokyo Kill), the San Francisco antiques dealer, who inherited his late father’s Tokyo-based detective agency, looks into the suspicious death of sculptor Toru Nobuki, who took a fatal fall onto some statues while visiting an art complex in California’s Napa Valley. One week later, Toru’s father and Brodie’s friend, world-class Japanese artist Ken Nobuki, is wounded by a sniper on the steps of San Francisco’s City Hall, and Brodie vows to protect Ken’s remaining children, who, as he soon learns, are inexplicably being targeted by a legendary Japanese assassin. Brodie faces a “nightmarish mix of motives and suspects,” his plight complicated by his discovery that the killer has been contracted to murder him as well. While the overall character development leaves something to be desired, the sheer complexity of the plot and audacity of the story line more than compensate. Agent: Robert Gottlieb, Trident Media Group.