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MR MOTO

YOUR TURN, MR MOTO
THANK YOU, MR MOTO
THINK FAST, MR MOTO
MR MOTO IS SO SORRY
LAST LAUGH, MR MOTO
THE LAST OF MR MOTO

YOUR TURN, MR MOTO (Aug 6, 2005) It's the darndest thing. This is the fifth Mr Moto book by John P Marquand that I've read, and (except for the final one), they've all had the exact same plot. Critics scoff at lowly pulp writers for sticking to a formula, but the Moto stories were slammed out by a Pulitzer Prize winning author and appeared in the prestigious slick SATURDAY EVENING POST, before immediately graduating to hardcover. Sometimes I suspect *Literature* isn't all it's made out to be. Each book in this series finds a disillusioned and cynical American in a fairly exotic location (Shanghai, Tokyo, Hawaii), who somehow gets himself entangled in high-risk international intrigue. He comes up against dangerous characters who regard him with suspicion, including a beautiful woman of dubious intent (with whom romance inevitably flares up), and he spends most of the story trying frantically to figure out what is going on before he gets his fool throat cut. The only character to appear in each story is of course Imperial Japan's top secret agent, Mr Moto himself.... although he is never the central protagonist, just one more piece in the complex jigsaw puzzle. And yet, this adherence to a rigid formula doesn't really detract from the books because the writing is just so smooth and adept. As the stories unfold, the narrator trusts and then suspects and then is unsure about every character in turn, changing his mind and reversing his opinion as he learns more about the situations. It's all believable and deftly handled, helped by the way there really are no outright villains or heroes-- just agents of different nations following their own agendas. The first book, NO HERO (later retitled YOUR TURN, MR MOTO) appeared in five parts in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST (March and April 1935). Casey Lee was a flying ace during World War One and has been living off his reputation ever since. But the glory has finally worn thin, and his growing alcoholism has left him stranded in Tokyo without money or prospects. Bitter and openly hostile to his own country (he tears his passport up in a spasm of self-pity), Lee is approached by a small, soft-spoken Japanese man with the odd name Moto -- and he agrees to quietly do some spying on American servicemen for Japan. Well, no good can come of this sort of thing, "man without a country" or not. On the liner IMOTO MARU, Lee is furtively approached by a Chinese man who gives him some cryptic words to puzzle over. Then the Chinese stranger is found murdered in Lee's stateroom and every spy for a hundred miles around is absolutely convinced that the man passed a mysterious Message of great importance to the disgraced American aviator before dying. He didn't, of course, but no one believes that. So Casey Lee finds himself in a Hitchcock-like dilemma of being pursued and menaced over something he knows nothing about. To give him credit, he abruptly stops drinking, stands up straight and faces the situation. ("It was a long while since I had been myself.") By the way, I felt a quite unreasonable burst of self-satisfaction at guessing early on just where the message was actually hidden. Not that I'm noticeably brilliant, I've just read altogether too many mysteries. In addition to Moto himself, Lee has to cope with Wu Lai-fu, a criminal mastermind who is openly racist against anyone not Chinese ("I am proud of my own people... They are superior to other people'') and with Commander Jim Driscoll of the US Navy's Intelligence branch, who still has contempt for the man he knew as a boozing traitor. The tastiest ingredient in the stew of course is Sonya Karaloff, an expatiate Russian who might be tumbling for Lee but you never know.... I've come to expect believable dialogue and unobtrusive but vivid descriptions of scenery from Marquand. The man was a master wordsmith, after all, dabbling in what he probably regarded as low thrillers not quite worthy of serious discussion. I imagine his mainstream novels are perfectly enjoyable today, more than you could say for most best-sellers of that year. What really amazes me is how objective he lets his characters be when they discuss the upcoming inevitable war. Sonya, for example, explains why Japan feels threatened; on one side is Russia, "driven back from Manchuria at the time of the Czar.." Approaching from the opposite direction is "a great country which is always moving forward -- taking. The United States is moving toward Asia -- her hand has reached out over Hawaii, over Guam, over the Phillipines. Where is she going to stop?" (America's dabbling with imperialism was never given much coverage in school textbooks. Maybe that's been changed.) There is one chilling moment when Lee says to Moto, "The United States has no means of attacking you. While the Hawaiian Islands are under the American flag, it is nearly impossible for you to reach the coast of North America." He is confident this means the two nations will never go to war with each other. If only.

THANK YOU, MR MOTO (Nov 8, 2003) From the February and March 1936 issues of THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, this is one of the best espionage stories that I can recall ever reading. John P. Marquand won a Pulitzer Prize for THE LATE GEORGE APLEY and deservedly enjoyed critical acclaim for his biting social commentary. All well and good, we certainly need fine *Literature* in our world, but hey, I'm a pulp fan. I like lurid images, wild improbable plots and larger than life characters. In his books about the Japanese master spy I.A. Moto, Marquand managed to combined the potent elements of thrillers with his exceptional craft to write some great mysteries (thanks, John!). THANK YOU, MR MOTO is essentially a story of enlightenment as our narrator goes through a gantlet of abuse which wakes him up and starts his life over again in a better direction. Tom Nelson is a self-exiled American living on a comfortable income in Peking just as WW II is ready to break like a thunderstorm that's been brewing all day. As he describes his daily life and outlook, Nelson comes across as thoroughly insufferable. Pampered by servants who literally baby him, spending his days in idle lazing about and socializing, the expatriate seems mostly determined not to have any feelings at all. He keeps himself in a state of emotional numbness. Nelson's constant remark to anything anyone says is, "Well, it doesn't matter does it?" (He says this so many times per page that at one point, I had to get up and retrieve the book from where I had thrown it across the room.) Although he tries to live in a stagnant stasis, the world of 1936 will not allow this. Warlords are running wild over the countryside, the army has abandoned Peking, the Japanese are starting to cut off chunks of territory, the times they are a'changing and not for the better. Despite his having his eyes shut and his fingers in his ears, Tom Nelson inevitably gets drawn into dramatic events. A cashiered British officer is found dead right after Nelson had visited him to hear a shady proposal, a charming woman with enigmatic purposes of her own is implicated, and there is a gorgeous picture scroll worth a fortune being shopped around (with seven more just as valuable in the area). Then there's the brutal warlord Wu Lo Feng, moving in on Peking like the fifth Horseman, not to mention the gruesome agent provocateur for Japanese imperialists, Takahara. And then, there's Mr Moto. He's not the star of the book, just one of the many colorful characters making up the cast, and he's not necessarily that crucial to the big finale. Yet Moto has a certain mystique that lets him take over whenever he's on stage. Possibly it's because we're so familiar with the character from the other entries in the series and the movies (this IS a "Mr Moto Book" after all), but he certainly has charisma. Mr Moto is a loyal servant of his Emperor, working for a faction in the Japanese government which wants expansion and empire-building all right*, but at a prudent and reasonable pace. Fighting him all the way is a deadly rival representing the imperiaists who would just as soon run right over all of Asia. This is Mr Takahara, who (what with his skeletal face and mutilated hand) is not a charming presence. It's not immediately clear to Tom Nelson or the reader exactly what to make of Moto. The Japanese agent is not a noble heroic figure nor a malevolent brute, either. He's pursuing his own agenda and if it happens to mesh with yours, you'll get along with him fairly well. (Moto is also perfectly capable of executing an enemy in cold blood, and that's not just a figure of speech.) Marquand had gone on an Asian tour in 1934 and it cerainly shows in the huge wealth to descriptive asides he works into the story. The travelogue material is not intrusive. It's not like one of those stories where a writer hurriedly throws big chunks of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC articles into the text without understanding them. The momentum of the storytelling is never lost, but the details of 1930s Peking are vivid and completely convincing. It's interesting that the narrator (and evidently Marquand himself) felt a strong attraction for Chinese customs and culture of that time, but at the same time felt hopelessly distanced from it. Tom Nelson speaks the language well and has gone as deep into the culture as he can without taking a Chinese wife and assuming a new name... but, yet he still is not wholly part of that world. We see (and he does eventually, too) that his cherished friendship with Prince Tung has a large element of debasement with the snooty aristocrat, and that in what he keeps proclaiming as a wiser, serene society, there are still bandits cutting off the heads of harmless servants. _______________ *In a remarkably objective speech for that era, Marquand has Moto calmly describe Japan's ambitions as "natural aspirations" and ask "Did not your own great country seize a large part of Mexico in the past century, Mr Nelson? And what of Britain's colonizing efforts?" All very true of course, but I was surprised to see these critical remarks in a 1936 story.

THINK FAST, MR MOTO (Nov 24, 2004) It's 1937, Imperial Japan is occupying Manchuria (which they have renamed Manchukuo), and the long nightmare which will be called World War II is getting into gear. A young stuffed shirt named Wilson Hitchings is new in Shanghai, taken into his family's all-too respectable banking and mercantile firm Hitchings Brothers by his shrewd Uncle William. From the start, a Japanese man named I.A. Moto is turning up underfoot in a notably sinister manner. "Mr Moto was a small man, delicate, almost fragile. His patent leather shoes squeaked slightly as he walked. He was dressed formally in a morning coat and striped trousers. His black hair was carefully brushed in the Prussian style. He was smiling, showing a row of shiny, goldfilled teeth, and as he smiled he drew in his breath with a polite, soft sibilant sound." Not exactly Peter Lorre, but close enough. It turns out that Eva Hitchings (one of the clan's distant poor relations) runs a gambling house in Honolulu, and is using the Hitchings name for this not entirely respectable enterprise. Wilson is going to be sent there to personally shut her game down. At the same time, something fishy is going on with a Chinese man named Chang Lo-Shih (who has a connection of some sort with the bandits in Manchuoko), and Moto is interested in Chang, as well. ("Large amounts of money are being passed from China to certain insurgent leaders in the mountains. It has been my duty for some months now to try to trace the paths through which that money goes.") Just what the heck is going on here? Wilson doesn't have a clue and as he doggedly begins to figure things out, we catch on along with him. This is one of those mysteries that keeps reversing every few pages what we think we know about the characters, so that you have to pay attention to how the pieces all fit together to be sure what side anyone's on. (She's an innocent pawn caught up in the intrigue.. no, she's a calculating adventuress.. no, she's really a complete crook.. or is she?) Even Wilson Hitchings, who seems so uptight and straight, turns out to be capable of surprises before it's all over. Wilson is good at observing and analyzing, choosing his words carefully and slowly unravelling the tangle he finds himself in. He's much like a private eye who suspects a crime has been committed but isn't sure what it could be. What's amusing to the reader is that (because we are in on his thoughts) we know that Wilson actually doesn't know anything about the situation.... but everyone else assumes he is a dangerous and manipulative agent of the Hitchins empire. When Wilson blandly explains he is completely innocent and looking for enlightenment, he is regarded as just being particularly sly. There is a pretty funny scene where Wilson negotiates with a tough American gangster named Maddock. Since Wilson doesn't quite grasp the thug's jargon ("You're a wise guy. You and me can play...Snow, if you don't get my drift.") and Maddock completely misunderstands Wilson's character, it's quite a dialogue. The writing here is much slower, more detailed and intospective than the adrenalin-loaded turbo prose of the pulps I normally enjoy, but that's fine with me. I've read all kinds of authors in my day (don't get me started on Nabokov). John P. Marquand's style is so subtle and smooth that it's never boring and flows neatly even when nothing much seems to be happening.There was a reason why this bird soon after won a Pulitzer Prize for literature. Marquand spends a good deal of wordage deftly describing Shanghai and Honolulu in 1938 but it's always to set a mood and provide an appropriate stage for the action, not mere travelogue filler. This was the third of the six Mr Moto books which John Marquand wrote to be published in serial form for THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. It's not a roaring action yarn or hair-raising horror story but a layered mystery much more like real life except for the huge stakes involved. Moto himself is never the actual star of the books; it's usually some disillusioned American in Asia whose problems we are reading about, and Mr Moto is just one of the various side characters involved (although always the pivotal one). We never learn too much about the guy, either, just hints and clues about his past. A minor member of Japanese aristocracy, Moto is one of the Emperor's most capable secret agents; unlike say, Charlie Chan, we don't see any of his home life or family or even much of his personality. He is basically opaque and playing the humble self-defacing role which leads people to underestimate him. The little spy manages to fit in "very" or "very very" into every sentence, and Wilson is soon saying, "Thank you, Mr Moto. That's very very interesting," although it's not clear if the habit is rubbbing off on him or if he is slightly mocking the man. It's also worth noting that if Moto fails in this assignment, he will take it seriously ("If I found out what I wish, I should be very, very pleased to die. If I do not find out, I am afraid that I must kill myself, so that is all very much the same." Good reason not to sign up for Japanese espionage training.) THINK FAST, MR MOTO was used as the title of the first of the eight Moto films from 20th Century Fox starring Peter Lorre; if you dig carefully, you can spot two or three points from the book which made it into the movie, but that's about it. The films usually ended with a brief display of judo, as far as I can tell the first use of an Asian martial art in a Hollywood flick.

MR MOTO IS SO SORRY (April 29, 2005) This didn't seem as well-written or compelling as the other Mr Moto books I've recently re-read. I would hate to think a Pulitzer Prize-winning *Author* like John P. Marquand could be guilty of pounding out something merely saleable like a common Pulp writer, but there it is. He did turn out a lot of forgettable short stories in his time (even the titles aren't intriguing) just like Norvell Page or Edgar Rice Burroughs or Sax Rohmer. The difference is that (at his peak) Marquand came out with polished novels of social commentary and satire that did win critical acclaim. And of course, he made regular sales to the slick mass-market magazines that were the goal of pulp writers toiling unhappily at low rates for WEIRD TALES or SPICY DETECTIVE. MR MOTO IS SO SORRY appeared in seven installments in the July and August 1938 issues of THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. It was the fourth of the six books in the series, and the formula is starting to wear thin. A disillusioned or disgraced American expatriate in Asia somehow finds himself entangled in deadly international intrigue. Mr Moto (Imperial Japan's top espionage agent) turns up with his own agenda, and (depending on whether it fits his purposes) helps out the confused American and ultimately explains what has been going on. Along the way, the nominal hero meets a lovely woman (not always American) and after some misunderstandings and setbacks, a romance develops designed to satisfy the female POST readers. (This is probably the ingredient most pulp writers were weakest in portraying.) In MR MOTO IS SO SORRY, we follow a Yank named Calvin Gates on his railway journey through China, on his way to meet an archaeological expedition. Gates is not actually interested in science, though, his motive is to find a certain Dr Gilbreth heading the expedition so he can clear up some unpleasantness from back in the States (Gates had taken the rap for forging a check to protect the young woman actually responsible). It's really not the most auspicious time to go wandering through China, either, as Japan has already taken a big chunk of the country (renaming it Manchukuo) and is getting ready to try carving up more territory for itself. ("Even as a stranger, he could feel the shadow of Japan moving inexorably across the map of China.") Meeting a snippy and unreasonably hostile artist named Shirley Galloway (the two address each other by their last names throughout, giving the dialogue a vaguely British tone), Gates develops a relationship with her at a glacial pace.("...Each time she had started to be friendly she had stopped herself deliberately.") Then, out of nowhere, Galloway's Russian guide Boris forces a gift of an ornate cigarette lighter on her just before he is liquidated by a professional "Ronin" assassin with a silenced pistol.("It had all been as perfect and as inevitable and as accurately rehearsed as a moment in the theater. It had been cold-blooded murder done by an expert in the art, and so completely done that there was nothing left but silence.") After that, the situation just gets increasingly more confusing and dangerous for the two Westerners as it becomes apparent that the lighter contains some secret message that spies are eager to obtain, no matter who has to die in the process. Quite a menagerie of shady characters of different nationalities work their way into the goings-on. There's an Australian soldier of fortune called Captain Hamby, who has the extremely irritating mania of putting lyrics from "Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag" into literally everything he says. Hamby is supposed to be on Gates and Galloway's side, sent by Dr Gilbreth, but I had suspicions about him from the start just because of his atrocious dialogue. There's a German caravan merchant named Holtz who deals with murderous Mongolian bandits, there's ambitious Major Ahara just aching to start a war with every nation within reach, there's a Russian General Shirov just as ready to meet him head-on. And then there's Prince Wu Fang*, trying to decide whether his people would suffer less abuse under Russian or Japanese occupation (seeing no way escape one or the other). Mr Moto is his usual ominous and inscrutable self. He is not by any means the star of the book, only appearing at crucial moments like a Deus ex Asia, err Machina. Moto is not exactly likeable or heroic by the usual standards of espionage thrillers. No one in the book trusts him, and they certainly shouldn't. He casually accepts that he must kill himself if he fails in his task, and he is equally calm about the necessity of sometimes taking other peoples' lives. He is not dedicated to preventing war, either; although he describes himself as "conservative" as opposed to the extremists, he sees nothing wrong with Japan building its own empire as Western nations had been doing so successfully. ("Excuse me, your own great country has taken territory. The British Empire has taken nearly half the globe. Why should not Japan? It is the manifest destiny of stronger nations.") The most disorienting aspect of this story is that you can't really cheer for anyone in it. Even Calvin Gates, despite the fact everything is told from his point of view, is an opaque and undeveloped character, We are never sure what he is really like or what he stands for. I think Marquand misjudged a bit here. Even if Gates had been presented as an unrepentant conman or weak-willed boozer, it would help to at least have something to work with. As things stand, it is never clear what sort of man he is, and this leaves a large void right in the center of the narrative. This is a characteristic of a lot of mainstream, "realistic" literature but those tend to deal more with exploration of personalities and relationships than with plotlines. In a story driven by events like this one, it would be more useful to have the central player more clearly drawn. Marquand's descriptive powers and smooth command of language are good as always, giving a vivid picture of 1938 China that never seems forced. The array of unscrupulous opportunists circling Gates and Galloway, like hyenas surrounding prey, are colorful enough. The best part of the book is the tense finale, where all the major characters are assembled for what amounts to a verbal poker game as they play their hands for the jackpot. Mr Moto, as you might expected, is the craftiest player there, but even he doesn't know everything. Right up until the last few paragraphs, there's suspense as to which way the cards are going to fall. Unfortunately, this is all pretty much a replay of the climax to the earlier (and better) THANK YOU, MR MOTO. _____ *No relation to the Dragon Lord of Crime who bred poisonous white bats, of course. There seem to have been almost as many Wu Fangs in thrillers as there were Mr Wongs.

LAST LAUGH, MR MOTO (Nov 14, 2005) This is the Mr Moto book by John P. Marquand that I enjoyed the least (and, because it was not included in the two big anthologies, I had to track it down separately). LAST LAUGH, MR MOTO was first published in serial form in COLLIERS in 1941 (under the title MERCATOR ISLAND) and it would be the last in the series until 1957, when STOPOVER TOKYO appeared. (Although, since Moto is by no means a gallant hero, Marquand could have easily written another book during WW II with him presented as more cold-blooded than usual.... I suppose he thought readers would want to see Moto killed off, though.) All of the books in this series follow a set formula. An American or Brit (usually disgraced, chronically drunk, bitter and cynical) living as an expatriate in an exotic setting (Japan, Hawaii, China) unknowingly gets caught up in dangerous international intrigue. He finds himself tangling with spies who would have no hesitation in killing him if he gets in the way, and there is always a beautiful mystery woman who falls in love with the hero. Stepping in and out of the dreadful mess at critical moments is a small, softspoken Japanese man who is actually the Emperor's top secret agent. Known as "I. A. Moto", this master spy does a lot of psychological manipulation and maneuvering to get what his nation wants and, although he doesn't kill wantonly, he is fully capable of murdering an innocent bystander if it's expedient. The quality of the writing itself is always quite high. Marquand is great at providing just enough detail to visualize the settings; his dialogue is believable, and each character has a distinctive voice. Marquand also has great skill at slowly revealing just enough hints in the dialogue and incidents that you know something shady is going on, but the answer is not quite obvious what until later. (Marquand won a Pulitzer Prize for literature for THE LATE GEORGE APLEY, was respected by critics and professors, yet he made his bundle off the Moto books. Go figure.) Yet, LAST LAUGH MR MOTO is not as completely satisfying as the other books in the series. Bob Boles is like the other protagonists. They all start at a low point in their spiritual development and go through hell to be awakened by the end of the book. Bob is even less likeable and sympathetic than usual; he is an ex-Navy officer who resigned in a fit of petulance because he was passed over for promotion. All his savings went into buying the schooner THISTLEWOOD, and now he mostly drifts from one Caribbean port to the next, gambling and drinking himself into stupors and slowly pawning off his belongings. Bob has a loyal first mate Tom, a black Jamaican who is actually his best friend but he doesn't always treat Tom well, either. ("For a moment, Bob Bolles was so surprised that he did not answer. Then he gave Tom a sharp cuff. 'Don't be a crazy nigger', he said.") That scene would go over real well with audiences if a faithful screen adaptation were made. Every now and then, he gets twinges of regret but for the most part, though, Bob is just sleepwalking through life. He is proudest that he had gotten to the point where he feels little if no real emotion at all. Then a bar owner he knows sets Bob up with a job, transporting a tourist couple and their servant to the unappealing remote Mercator Island. It means money for booze and supplies, so Bob agrees. But right from the start, there is a feeling something is not quite right with the situation. Why does Mr Kingman often hesitate in his speech, as if searching for a word in a language unfamiliar to him? Why is Mrs Kingman talking in circles, hinting she would like to run away with Bob? Why is their valet Oscar such a sullen, muscular brute? Then there is this Moto character. Bob Boles first encounters him as apparently just a humble proprietor of a Japanese clothing and curio shop, who tries to sell him a nice silk suit. But there is something suspicious about the man. (Well, of course, it helps if we have read the other books and seen a few of the Peter Lorre movies.) Moto turns up at unexpected moments and when things are getting really dire and it seems only a matter of when (not if) Bob will killed, darned if Moto doesn't pop in again miles from where he should be, smiling and polite and keeping a hand in his side coat pocket. Aside from describing the scenery and slowly revealing characterizations, Marquand is terrific at showing how frightening secret agents really are. Everything they say and do is bent to their mission, and neither their lives or yours are allowed to interfere.("There was an absolute coldness in their attitude such as Bob Boles had never seen... They were carefully trained graduates of the most dangerous school in the world, so well-trained that they could keep their tempers and their wits, so well-trained that they could control every tremor of fear and nervousness.") Moto is no different than the Nazi or Russian spies; if his job calls for torture or murder, he'll do it as effeciently as possible. "So very sorry," he'll say as the knife goes in. The whole gruelling experience gives Bob the usual renewal of purpose and ideals that heroes in the Moto books experience. ("He had been used so long to thinking that nothing mattered - and now he felt alive, so completely alive that he could not believe it.") On the other hand, the inevitable romance with the enigmatic lady doesn't ring quite true this time. Without giving away too much, yes there is something of great importance to the war's outcome somewhere on Mercator Island (well, we all knew that after the first few chapters, eh?). Bob's life is only safe as long as he is useful in retrieving it. At first it seems to be a simple military gadget (like the "new bomb sights" which motivated so many war thrillers) but it actually turns out to be something more significant. And in a very cute twist, the Japanese master spy for once is not quite as perceptive as usual. The "last laugh" is on Mr Moto for a change.

THE LAST OF MR MOTO (April 16, 2003)   From 1956, where it appeared in serial form in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST (okay, not exactly a pulp magazine) this indeed was the last of the Mr. Moto books by John P. Marquand. It's a beautifully crafted spy story, completely engrossing from the first page, and it closes with a numbing sucker punch for those who always expect a happy triumphant ending.   There were six Mr. Moto books by Marquand, the first being YOUR TURN, MR. MOTO in 1935 and the last previous entry in the series had been in 1941. All of them are well done but this final installment is perhaps the best. John P. Marquand (1893-1960) won a Pultizer Prize in 1938 for THE LATE GEORGE APLEY, and he was the sort of author that pulp writers like Lester Dent and Norvell Page usually aspired to become. His style is clear and vivid, very articulate and insightful without becoming mired down in endless introspection and pretty landscapes as the work of many *Serious Artists* often becomes. Jack Rhyce, a young American intelligence agent is sent to Tokyo to find out exactly what kind of devilish outrage a spy from the other side in the Cold War is going to commit. They have a name to go on, Big Ben, and not much more than the suspicion there will be an assassination that might swing Japan over to the Communist side. Jack finds himself travelling with the charming Ruth Bogart, his exact counterpart in espionage skills. As they head to Tokyo and begin their investigation, despite all their training and experience, the two of them begin to fall in love and consider leaving the service to start new life "outside". Marquand spends a lot of time and skill making their attraction to each other and their disenchantment with their trade believable... and when the final showdown comes with the enemy agents, the emotional stakes are for once very real.  What makes the book so fascinating is that Marquand dwells constantly on the obsessive attention to detail these spies must pay, watching literally every word and every gesture they make, judging and analyzing everything that goes on around them for hidden meanings, playing a role that must be believable no matter what their own feelings are. Just reading about it is nerve-wracking, and I can see how in real life actual spies do break down and crack from the strain. As much as I enjoy Ian Fleming's books, James Bond never had to put as much effort into playing an undercover role as these two have to do (Bond was more of a combat counterspy, anyway). Mr. Moto himself only appears from time to time at strategic points; he's not the actual star of the book as Bond or Harry Palmer is. A veteran master spy who has been serving Japan for many years, Moto by now is getting gray and more devious than ever. Like Jack Rhyce, Moto is always choosing every word and gesture carefully and neither the reader nor Jack can be sure when to believe him. (He does throw in frequent comments that startle and perhaps are meant to rattle Jack. Mentioning how rough questioning should be avoided if possible, he says, "Americans are always so very sentimental when they are not using flame-throwers and napalm. Ha-ha. Excuse me.")  And it's mentioned that of course "Moto" is not actually a genuine Japanese name ( "only a suffix to a name, like Yamamoto or Mikimoto..."), which I always wondered about when watching the Peter Lorre movies. It's like an Irishman being named Fitz.            Marquand also does a fine job taking us through postwar Japan, presenting it objectively and vividly without letting colorful digressions detour the story. I know I have the other Moto books around here somewhere and I must excavate them now after reading this one. THE LAST OF MR. MOTO was originally published as STOPOVER: TOKYO and also seems to have seen book form as RIGHT YOU ARE, MR. MOTO; it appeared in THE POST as RENDEZVOUS IN TOKYO, so it's one of those books that has many aliases, appropriate for its subject.