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#FridayReads, Jan 24–Barry Lancet’s Gripping Thriller “Japantown”

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From 1992-97, when I worked for Kodansha America, the US division of the major Japanese publisher, I had many interesting and talented colleagues, some of whom worked in New York, and others at the home office in Tokyo. My colleagues included both Westerners and Japanese. I didn’t often meet the ones who worked in Japan, but would occasionally see their names on inter-office memos and catalog materials. Among this group was Les Pockell, a lithe and witty fellow who after many years with the company in Tokyo came back to New York, working for Warner Books, later called Grand Central. He was also an anthologist of poetry and story collections. Sadly, Les died in 2010 at age 68. A Japanese colleague working in New York those years was my boss, Minato Asakawa, whose idea it was to publish Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years, the autobiography of two African-American sisters, Sadie and Elizabeth Delany, then both more than 100 years old. It became a huge bestseller in hardcover and paperback, and was adapted into a Broadway play. Under Asakawa, I had the opportunity to acquire and publish many terrific books, such as A Diary of the Century: Tales from American’s Greatest Diarist by Edward Robb Ellis, and his one-volume hsitory, The Epic of New York City. Together, Asakawa and I published the Kodansha Globe series, which in many ways anticipated the fine list published nowadays by the New York Review of Books Classics imprint. Kodansha Globe combined titles in cross-cultural studies, anthropology, natural history, adventure, narrative travel and belle lettres. By the time I left Kodansha in 1997 we had published more than ninety Globe titles, including the first paperback edition of Barack Obama’s first book Dreams From My Father.

Another Westerner in the Tokyo contingent, though one I never met face-to-face was editor Barry Lancet. Last year, I read in PublishersMarketplace.com that Barry was going to debut as an author, publishing his first novel, a thriller. I made a mental note of that good news, and before I could get in touch with Barry to renew our old acquaintanceship, a mutual friend in the book business, publicity professional Jeff Rutherford, put Barry in touch with me. We exchanged personal and professional news and I congratulated him on publication of his first book. I was pleased then when in December I got a copy of Japantown from his editor at Simon & Schuster. After working through a lot of reading that piled up during the holidays, I started Japantown this week, and am totally engrossed by it. Here’s a rundown with no plot points you wouldn’t pick up in the first quarter of the novel.

The book is at first set in San Francisco where protagonist Jim Brodie works as a dealer in Asian antiquities** at the same time maintaining connection with the private detective agency his late father founded and ran in Tokyo, with many local employees. In the wake of the death of the younger Brodie’s wife Mieko in a mysterious and unsolved fire, Brodie’s a single dad living with his grade school age daughter, Jenny. Combining his two areas of expertise, Brodie is the new go-to-guy when the San Francisco Police Department find itself investigating a grisly mass murder with Japanese victims and characteristics: A Japanese family of five has been gunned down after dark in a public park. At the scene, Brodie finds only one clue, a paper artifact emblazoned with the same written character (kanji in Japanese) as was found at the scene of his wife’s death. Brodie doesn’t realize, though the reader knows, that even as he surveys the scene of the brutal killing he and Renna are being surveilled with lenses and cameras by unknown agents. Though not knowing the extent of the surveillance he’s under, he senses someone’s watching him, at his gallery and even at home with Jenny. With the obscure kanji in hand, Brodie undertakes an investigative trip to Japan, first putting Jenny in to the protective embrace of a police safe house. Once in Japan, the malign forces behind the killings begin taking aim at Brodie and one of his most trusted colleagues, Noda.

All the past work week I was looking for more time to read Japantown, and I’m glad it’s now the weekend, with some uninterrupted time for reading. Lancet’s writing is vivid and economical and the plotting assured. If you want to learn more about Lancet and his background, including some very good advice for aspiring writers, I suggest you visit his website or follow him on twitter @BarryLancet. I’ll post more about his book later, but for now I want to say I recommend it highly.
WEDNESDAY JAN 29 UPDATE I finished Japantown the other day and it was great to the last page! A totally gripping international thriller. I’ll post more about it later. Best thing is, I believe Barry Lancet’s already working on Book II.

** Antiquities dealer is a profession I’m partial to in mysteries, like the POT THIEF series for which I’m the agent, with J. Michael Orenduff’s six books which went on sale this week from Open Road. In the POT THIEF books, set in an Albuquerque, main character Hubie Schuze is a dealer in Native American ceramics, and a capable ceramicist himself. The books are memorably titled:  The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras,The Pot Thief Who Studied Ptolemy,The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein,The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier,The Pot Thief Who Studied D. H. Lawrence, and The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid. As the titles suggest, Hubie’s reading and appreciation of classic texts by, and the venerable lives of scientists, writers, a chef and an outlaw, make for enjoyable mystery fiction.

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Greeting Japanese Visitors at BEA, June 7

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A few weeks ago, publishing friend, Kay Ohara–who like me, once worked for the Japanese publisher Kodansha–emailed me with this question: “I’m playing the role of tour guide for a group of Japanese booksellers/ publishers. Their main interest is e-books . . . I was hoping you can give us a chance to ask what you’ve seen happening in the US book industry? Any time you can spare on June 7 at Javits?”

I happily agreed, made a note in my calendar, and forgot about it until yesterday when I got a text from Kay. “Are you at Javits? The delegation is having lunch right now. I wanted to know if you can meet with us in an hour or so.” Delegation–hmm? I thought. Fortunately, I wasn’t booked and we agreed to meet near the Bowker booth, at an entrance to the convention floor. I figured from there we could go find a few chairs outside in the food court, and I would try to answer their questions.

When I arrived, I saw that the group was much larger than I’d imagined, almost twenty men and women. Where was I going to take them? How would they hear me? What would I say to them? Luckily, I remembered that Kay is an excellent interpreter, so at least I had that going for me. Also lucky was the fact that next to the Bowker booth is a wide, common area, sort of a pass-through between two parts of the convention floor, with a kind of garage door and iron pillars to one side. I sized up the setting and moving with my back to this barrier, encouraged them to gather round in a semi-circle in front of me. I nodded to Kay and told her I’d offer them a quick rundown of my bookselling and publishing career, so they would understand my perspective on the business, after which I’d take their questions. I gave them my background in brief two-minute bursts, with Kay translating each segment–from Undercover Books, through the eight publishers I’ve worked for as an editor, with a special emphasis on my five years from 1992-97 with Kodansha America–when with my colleague Minato Asakawa, we created the Kodansha Globe series, devoted to cross-cultural titles, and the many Japanese and American colleagues I had then, such as Asakawa-san, Chikako Noma, daughter of the company’s president, and the late and dearly missed Leslie Pockell–on up through to my present days as curator and writer of this blog, independent editor, author representative, and consultant to such publishing enterprises as Speakerfile.

As Kay–who nowadays works as a publishing reporter for Japanese publications–had mentioned, their questions were largely about ebooks and I explained how they’ve reshaped and are continuing to reshape the U.S. book market. They asked me about author advances, and how the emergence of ebooks have affected them (on average, lowered them, I said); how print runs have been affected (ditto); and whether the majority of four-color printing for U.S. publishers is still being done in China (not sure, was my candid reply). At one point during the discussion, while Kay was interpreting something I’d said, I noticed several in the group were taking pictures of me. I took out my digital camera and began taking pictures of them, in a quick, panoramic continuum. The gallery of photos below is the spontaneous result.

Before we were finished, I distributed a handful of the 4×6 black&white postcard that Kyle and I’d had printed as a handout for BEA, and a fistful of my business cards. Soon, they were giving me their cards too, and we enjoyed a few minutes of very mannerly bowing and high-spirited exchanges of reciprocal good wishes for one another, with Kay providing introductions. The half-hour I spent with these foreign guests was a happy and diverting interlude on the final afternoon of BEA, a cross-cultural exchange I’m very glad I had the chance to be a part of, thanks to Kay Ohara, and her delightful “delegation.”
[Click through to see all photos.]

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