Pacific Burn: A Thriller (3) (A Jim Brodie Thriller) - Hardcover

Lancet, Barry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 147679488X ISBN 13: 9781476794884

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2016

Synopsis

“Pacific Burn is a page-turning, globe-spanning tale of murder, suspense, and intrigue that grabs and holds your attention from beginning to end. Barry Lancet is truly a gifted author, and his character of Jim Brodie is unlike any private investigator you’ve ever encountered in literature.” —Nelson DeMille, New York Times bestselling author of Radiant Angel

In the third book in “what will likely be a long and successful series” (San Francisco Magazine), Japanese antiques dealer and PI Jim Brodie goes up against the CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security—and a killer operating on both sides of the Pacific.

In recognition for his role in solving the Japantown murders in San Francisco, antiques dealer and sometime-PI Jim Brodie has just been brought on as the liaison for the mayor’s new Pacific Rim Friendship Program. Brodie in turn recruits his friend, the renowned Japanese artist Ken Nobuki, and after a promising meeting with city officials and a picture-perfect photo op, Brodie and Nobuki leave City Hall for a waiting limo.

But as soon as they exit the building, a sniper attacks them from the roof of the Asian Art Museum. Quick thinking allows Brodie to escape, but Nobuki ends up hospitalized and in a coma. Brodie soon realizes that, with the suspicious and untimely death of Nobuki’s oldest son a week earlier in Napa Valley, someone may be targeting his friend’s family—and killing them off one by one.

Suspects are nearly too numerous to name—and could be in the United States or anywhere along the Pacific Rim. The quest for answers takes Brodie from his beloved San Francisco to Washington, DC, in a confrontation with the DHS, the CIA, and the FBI; then on to Tokyo, Kyoto, and beyond, in search of what his Japanese sources tell him is a legendary killer in both senses of the word—said to be more rumor than real, but deadlier than anything else they’ve ever encountered if the whispers are true.

About this title

Review:

Guest Interview: Best-selling Author Steve Berry Talks to Barry Lancet about his award-winning Jim Brodie series

New York Times best seller Steve Berry practiced law for nearly three decades before his first thriller, THE AMBER ROOM, was published in 2003. He wasn’t writing legal thrillers or about the law, but instead, his novels had action, history, secrets, and conspiracies. Berry now has over 20 million books in print, in 40 languages and 51 countries, and his latest blockbuster, THE 14TH COLONY is sure to rocket to the top of best-seller lists. In this special guest interview, Berry talks to another writer who had a full career before breaking out with his own exciting international thrillers.

I first heard of Barry Lancet when his debut novel, JAPANTOWN, arrived on the scene. The international mystery-thriller leapt onto a number of Best Debut lists and eventually took home the Barry Award for Best First Novel. It also attracted the attention of J. J. Abrams who optioned the series for television.

Lancet’s follow-up, TOKYO KILL, which also featured the art dealer/PI Jim Brodie, put him in an elite crowd when it was selected as a finalist for the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel of the Year, along with Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling) and Reed Farrell Coleman, among others.

In his latest effort, PACIFIC BURN, things are looking up for Japan expert Jim Brodie, who also runs an antiques shop in San Francisco. The mayor, impressed by Brodie’s success in the Japantown murders, recruits him as the liaison for his new Pacific Rim Friendship Program. Brodie brings a famous Japanese artist friend, Ken Nobuki, on board. But when they are both attacked, Brodie narrowly escapes and his friend ends up in a coma. The story escalates when Brodie is confronted by a task force of CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security agents. When he uncovers a potential plot against Nobuki’s family, its origin could be from a number of directions. Disgruntled countries excluded from the mayor’s program, political enemies of the mayor, or, most chillingly, Japan’s “nuclear mafia,” the group responsible for a possible cover-up about the meltdown of the power facility at Fukushima.

Third time’s a charm for this talented author who recently spoke with me about his series, life as a Tokyo expat, and PACIFIC BURN.

SB: I get asked this about Cotton Malone a lot, so I’ll ask you: What inspired the Jim Brodie series?

BL: Being hauled down to the stationhouse and interrogated for three-hours by the Tokyo police started me thinking about it. I should have been enraged by their “request” for a “voluntary interview,” but I was fascinated by the cat-and-mouse game they played. I thought, “There’s a story here.” It percolated for years until I found direction and an overwhelming desire to show others what I’d seen during my years in Japan.

SB: Wait, wait, wait. You can’t just leave us hanging. Why were the Japanese police bothering you in the first place?

BL: Turns out I didn’t complete the visa renewal process. I was supposed to inform the local city office when I renewed my visa, but no one told me. My slip-up gave them a chance to grill me. It was about a minor, noncriminal infraction but they could have thrown me out of the country. And believe me, they seemed to want to, asking every question imaginable.

SB: What brought you to Tokyo in the first place? And what’s kept you there for more than twenty years?

BL: A quick stopover, as I was traveling the globe during my college years, was my first experience. I never imagined that diversion would result in a job, then a marriage, and some great kids. I love the United States, but from my first day in Tokyo, something told me it was going to be my home.

SB: Your protagonist, Jim Brodie, is a Japanese art expert, but he lives in the U.S. What made you choose San Francisco as his home instead of Tokyo?

BL: He’s a bridge between two worlds, so I wanted him to have a foot in both places. He lives in the U.S., but has to manage his father’s PI business in Tokyo. He’s the insider who can explain Japan and the Far East to the rest of us—as inexplicable events unfold.

SB: Besides your encounters with police, how much of what you write about are you familiar with on a personal basis and how much do you have to research?

BL: Most of it is from personal experience and knowledge. I’ve been in Japan more than two decades now. I research what I don’t know. For PACIFIC BURN, I lived through the disastrous earthquake-tsunami-nuclear plant meltdown, which plays a role in the story. I was 150 miles away from the epicenter and the earthquake shook buildings for five minutes. It shut down all train lines for hours. Some of them for days. The devastation for what is now a ghost town in Fukushima—and the corruption uncovered in the wake of the disaster—was a story that had to be told.

SB: Ah, let’s talk more about PACIFIC BURN. Each of your first two books stretched boundaries, as witnessed by the award recognition they received. Where did you and Brodie go in PACIFIC BURN that you haven’t gone before?

BL: For the first time, I wove in an actual current event into the plot. A lot of vague and misleading reports were issued from Japanese sources about what happened in Fukushima. People here and in the States were confused about the real story. I was constantly asked about it. There was—and still is—an alleged cover-up by the so-called “nuclear mafia,’ who figure big in PACIFIC BURN.

SB: Like me, you had a full career before your first novel was published. You weren’t a lawyer, were you?

BL: No courtrooms for me. I was a book editor for a large publisher based in Tokyo. Everyone in Japan wants a book in English, so I was granted access to a lot of behind-the-scenes areas. Even most Japanese don’t get into the places I went. That, plus all the esoteric manuscripts I read, fed my imagination. I’ve read that it took you 85 tries before you were first published. I had a similar experience, though not quite that many rejections. Now if I can just follow in your footsteps on the rest of my journey, that would be great.

About the Author:

Barry Lancet is a Barry Award­–winning author and finalist for the Shamus Award. He has lived in Japan for more than twenty-five years. His former position as an editor at one of the nation’s largest publishers gave him access to the inner circles in traditional and business fields most outsiders are never granted, and an insider’s view that informs his writing. He is the author of the Jim Brodie series: The Spy Across the Table; Pacific Burn; Tokyo Kill; and Japantown, which received four citations for Best First Novel and has been optioned by J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot Productions, in association with Warner Brothers. Visit Lancet at BarryLancet.com or on Twitter @BarryLancet.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 147679488X
• ISBN 13: 9781476794884
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368