The Informer - Hardcover

Takagi, Akimitsu

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 156947155X ISBN 13: 9781569471555

Publisher: Soho Press, 2003

Synopsis

Based on a real-life incident, a novel of industrial espionage, adultery, and murder features a down-and-out stockbroker who finds himself the prime suspect in the killing of an old friend, who had married his former girlfriend.

About this title

About the Author

Akimitsu Takagi was born in 1920 and graduated from Kyoto University. His first job was as an engineer for the Nakajima Aircraft Company. He won the Japan Mystery Writers Club Award and wrote fifteen popular mysteries.

Reviews

There are many webs and one or more deadly spiders spinning them in this intricate tale of deceit and murder from the late Japanese master (1920-1995); the book is one of two by Takagi that Soho will publish in June (see review below). Shiego Segawa should have listened to the old adage, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." The young stock-market trader has been enjoying all the benefits of Japan's burgeoning postwar resurgence until he overreaches and is caught short when the market tumbles. Allowed to resign from his company, he starts his own, only to see it fail. Then he is offered a wonderful job opportunity: Mikio Sakai, the owner of a small new firm, Shinwa Trading Co., asks him to come on as salesman, for a high salary and higher prospects. But Sakai's real aim is industrial sabotage, and Shiego soon finds himself on a slippery slope where he must juggle women and ethics while betraying an old friend. When Shoichi Ogino, his putative target, discovers the betrayal and then is murdered, Shiego is the obvious suspect. But State Prosecutor Saburo Kirishima is never satisfied by the obvious, and his deft probing gradually strips away the cobwebs to reveal an elegant solution.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Having already failed at both his stockbroking job (he got caught covering his speculations with clients' money) and his own firm, Shigeo Segawa doesn't expect much from his next job. So he's pleasantly surprised when a tip from Kazumi Yamaguchi, an ex-lover who's still carrying a flame for him, leads him to Mikio Sakai, owner and manager of the fledgling Shinwa Trading Company. There's only one catch behind the generous salary and the promised partnership that Sakai dangles before him: his work selling massage machines is only a cover for Shinwa's real business, industrial espionage. Is Segawa willing to earn his way back to the big time by tricking his former friend Shoichi Ogino, executive director of the Shichiyo Chemical Company, into giving him a peek at the formula for the new wonder compound paramizol? Before you can say ``major yen,'' Segawa's wormed his way back into Ogino's confidence and his wife Eiko's bed, and he's making real progress with Setsuko Kondo, secretary to paramizol wizard Tatsuji Nishiwaki. Then, without warning, a murder brings all Segawa's plans to a screeching halta murder for which he's the obvious suspect. The cops work hard, but the detection here is less interesting than the proposed crime. Before murder spoils everything, though, Takagi (The Tattoo Murder Case, 1998) achieves some of the brilliantly brutal effect of a more polite David Mamet. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Soho Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 156947155X
• ISBN 13: 9781569471555
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 257