Rising Sun

This story is an eye-opener into the nature of Japanese closed-in society and their economic superiority over the US. They have a saying that “business is war,” and so they go all out to win, buying up businesses in critical sectors of the economy in the States, investing heavily in the research institutions and even police services and political structures. The final outcome: They can control the national affairs simply by wielding their economic options, with Americans being afraid of going against their wishes. While the Japanese can invest in America, in Japan they make it virtually impossible for outsiders to do the same. Their business strategies of war are rather unfair though—bribing people to get favorable treatment, price fixing and dumping of products: Japanese products are cheaper in America than in Japan but only so as to drive out local American competitors.

All this gradually come to light during a police investigation, led by Connor, a Japanese-speaking detective of long standing that very much understands their culture and way of doing things. During the grand opening of the skyscraper headquarters of Nakamoto, a Japanese corporation, a young woman is found dead on the 46th floor just above the partying. Connor and his assistant Peter Smith have to quickly uncover the cause of death and the killer, against mounting pressure from the Japanese to do a rather shoddy job. After a couple of wrong suspect selections—first Eddie Sakamura, from a competing business to Nakamoto’s, then Senator Morton who didn’t want Nakamoto to buy yet another American high-tech company—they finally find that the real killer was an employee of Nakamoto named Ishiguro. He did the killing in order to pressurize the senator into changing his position, having spotted the senator having sex with her minutes before she passed out, with the senator not knowing she really wasn’t dead.

Reading the story a second time a year later, I thought, Interesting! So the Japs now regard all Americans as “niggers” because of their better educational, industrial and economic systems!

January 13, 2015. Review initially written in 2011. Novel published in 1992 by Ballantine Books, ISBN 0-345-38037-1.