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.

December 1, 2015
In the third big case taking him from his home in San Francisco to his native Japan, antiques dealer-cum-detective Jim Brodie tracks down the killers who have been knocking off the members of a friend's family. Brodie, who inherited the Tokyo-based investigative agency of his American father, badly wants to stay at home looking after his adorable 6-year-old daughter and selling rare ceramic pieces. But after the son of prominent artist Ken Nobuki is murdered, Nobuki himself is shot by a sniper, and other family members are targeted, the bilingual detective travels to Washington, D.C., to protect Nobuki's daughter, Naomi. A well-known reporter, she has made significant enemies with her anti-nuclear power crusades--including, apparently, higher-ups in various U.S. agencies. After being attacked by a guy with knives in Nobuki's hospital room back in San Francisco, Brodie flies off to Tokyo, where he is reunited with Rie, a Tokyo cop with whom he has a budding romance (his wife was murdered), and Noda, the taciturn lead detective at Brodie Security. Brodie's homecoming is spoiled by a scary yakuza member called TNT who forecasts his death and a legendary assassin called Steam Walker who is said never to fail on the job. As ever, Lancet stages some good fight scenes--no one gets beaten up as well as Brodie--and keeps the action going. But while the book is a decent addition to the series, a certain predictability is taking hold of the plotting. Could be that Lancet needs to settle on one locale or find a new one. The third Jim Brodie thriller is a solid, action-filled effort but lacks the edgy excitement of the first and best installment, Japantown (2013).

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December 15, 2015
The third Jim Brodie thriller (following Tokyo Kill, 2014) finds the antiques dealer and occasional PI racing against time to stop a killer. Appointed by the mayor of San Francisco to the Pacific Rim Friendship Program, Brodie asks his friend, a Japanese artist, to work with him. The artist, still reeling from the recent death of his son, is himself nearly killed by a sniper, and Brodie goes on the offensive. The author, like Jim Brodie, has lived for many years in Japan; he does a fine job of taking us into Japanese (and Japanese American) culture without resorting to stereotype. The plotting is tight, the characters are richly detailed, and Brodie continues to prove himself a solid series lead.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)