The Deal

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A fearless blend of thriller, love story and sharp lesson in cultural mistrust, Setlowe's latest novel delves potently and with frightening immediacy into Asian nationalism and politics. His plot involves the Japanese mob, high-stakes international economic and sexual rivalries, and old war wounds still complicating relations between Japan and the U.S. Peter Saxon is a lawyer for a huge American media conglomerate, who has traveled to Tokyo to secretly negotiate a major international communications merger--the acquisition of Kuribayashi Electronics. During his stay, Saxon is shocked to find that the wife of the Japanese negotiator may be the woman with whom he had a tender love affair 30 years earlier while stationed in Japan during the Vietnam War. Though he yearns to discover whether Michiko Hara is the same person he knew as a nightclub hostess named Lilli, unmasking her identity would bring her great shame--and could scuttle the business deal. Lilli was, after all, a woman who consorted with American servicemen, behavior still considered suspect and humiliating. But Saxon has other troubles, too. The Yakuza (the Japanese mafia), which has mysterious connections to Kuribayashi, tries first to frame him for a murder, then to kill him. Naturally, the business deal languishes while Saxon tries to determine the mob's motives. It becomes clear that certain executives at Kuribayashi have vowed never to sell the coompany to a country that not only destroyed but metaphorically emasculated Japan, through the seduction of Japanese women. Related through heavy doses of flashbacks, the novel has all the plot convolutions and menacing mystery of a good thriller, and turns especially intriguing with the colorful supporting character of Tom Cochran, Saxon's old navy buddy later turned Buddhist monk. Though readers may find Saxon too dispassionate to ignite the love story, the strength of the book is Setlowe's (The Black Sea) piercing observations of the social and cultural chasm that divides Japan and the U.S. With impressive skill, he demonstrates that the tenacious residue of war continues to leave its mark on new generations of Japanese and Americans. Agent, Scott Waxman.(Aug.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Peter Saxon is in Japan to arrange a merger between an American media conglomerate and a Japanese electronics giant, a high-stakes game for control of the entertainment and communications industry worldwide. Thirty years earlier, as a pilot in Vietnam, he faced a terror that was only assuaged in the "floating world" of Japanese sex clubs. Now, threatened by an enemy aiming to destroy both him and the history-making deal, the American must confront what happened in the past--a haunting love affair with a nightclub hostess who had her own history of pain--and its legacy in the present: a half-century of Japanese hatred and jealousy that goes back through Vietnam to the devastating fire bombings of World War II. In his fifth novel, Setlowe tells an intelligent and engrossing story of love and war, one crafted with exquisite skill, richly detailed, insightful in its implications, and immensely satisfying. Highly recommended.--Ronnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

First-rate adult melodrama about the globalization of entertainment and communications networks, not to mention intellectual and spiritual maturity in high finance. Attorney Peter Saxon, representing an American communications conglomerate, flies to Tokyo to seduce Kuribayashi Electronics into a merger. A trillion-dollar return awaits the dominant company that gets the world rewired for HDTV, the biggest event in communications since color television, and Peter wants Kuribayashi to help with the revamping of communications necessary to build up HDTV. As it happens, his business quest turns out to involve certain spiritual issues about the nature of time, obligations, and duties that are just as important as the huge bundles of credit involved. The night before Peter arrives, the man with whom he is supposed to open discussions is murdered with a samurai sword. Kuribayashi, it seems, has ties with the Yakuza, who themselves have moral obligations. The novel's title stems from an incident during Peter's youth. Some 30 years ago, he and his closest buddy, Tommy Cochran, were US fighter pilots stationed in Tokyo, from which they bombed and strafed Vietnam. Out one night with two beautiful Japanese women, they were attacked by an anti-American mob. Peter was deeply attracted to Lilli (not her real name) and is convinced she is now the wife of one the Japanese businessmen attached to Kuribayashi Electronics. His pursuit of her leads to castrated genitals being nailed to his hotel room door, a girl's murder, an attack in a Zen temple, and so on. Tommy has become a Zen monk and assists Peter as his spiritual authority in dealing with Japanese industry giants who do not have the same businessmotivation as Peter's company. Lucky readers who first discover Setlowe here (The Black Sea, 1991, etc.) will delight in knowing that some thrillers can be great fun and for grownups at the same time.