Japanese Game - Hardcover

Once a consistent producer of hilarious, over-the-top international thrillers, Hoyt seems to have had the laughs knocked out of him by seriousness, outrage, and despair. It began when his maverick former CIA agent James Burlane took on the drug trade in Marimba ; Hoyt seemed to conclude that the drug cartels are unstoppable by a nation of laws. In Japanese Game, Hoyt posits that establishing a level economic playing field with a nation that casts a blind eye at organized crime's sex-slavery racket and allows yakuza criminals close ties to business and government leaders is similarly hopeless. The daughter of the U.S. vice president is kidnapped in the Philippines and sold to the yakuza as a sex slave. When the gangsters learn who she is, they attempt to blackmail the U.S. into softening its stance in trade negotiations. Enter Burlane, who, after examining each country's approach to baseball, decides that hardball is the only game the kidnappers will understand. Longtime Hoyt fans will wish for a return to his earlier approach, but they'll still ask for Japanese Game. Thomas Gaughan

The American government is about to get tough with Japan regarding unequal trade practices and infractions on American patents. Soon, though, word reaches Washington that Linda Shive, the 21-year-old daughter of the vice president, has been abducted and sold to a Japanese sex-slave ring owned by one of Japan's most ruthless and powerful godfathers. Desperate to save his daughter without jeopardizing delicate international trade negotiations, Jack Shive calls in James Burlane, a "retired" CIA operative who plays by his own rules. The action is played out against the backdrop of Japan's popular world series of besoburu (baseball), which is played by a different set of rules from U.S. baseball. The book is suspenseful and well paced, but the scenes of sadomasochism and violence are not for the faint-hearted. For large popular collections.?Maria A. Perez-Stable, Western Michigan Univ. Libs., Kalamazoo
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.