John P. MarquandReseñas

“What is so rare as a day in June? Then if ever come perfect days.”

Fun that this quote is in here, as I am reading this in said month!

It’s my first Mr. Moto book and if his name hadn’t been in the title, I wouldn’t have even noticed his few brief appearances early in the story!

From his reappearance to finding the plane the story bogs down. Way down. Lots and lots of talking. Pretty much from the point that everyone reaches the island, the story just falls flat. I'm not sure if I'll try another book in this series.

Young Wilson Hutchings of Salem, Mass. Has been sent to Shanghai to learn the family business of Hitchings Brothers, a financial institution that had been in business for 100 years.

For his first major assignment, Wilson is sent to Honolulu to deal with a branch of the family and the business that has gone off on another direction, and is giving the family and business a bad image.

Going from Shanghai to Honolulu, Wilson finds a difference in lifestyle. Shanghai may have more structure than Honolulu. Honolulu is more alluring and laid back, but both have an undercurrent that can be dangerous and deadly.

Wilson had met Mr. Moto when he visited the Hitching Brothers office in Shanghai. It was suggested Moto was an agent for the Japanese government. When Wilson meets him again in Honolulu, it turns out to be true, and Moto is also interesting in the Hitchings Brothers Honolulu office activities.

Espionage, double dealing, Moto’s changing character and plotting make for a very adventurous read. It is also interesting to note the view of the characters in this story written prior to WWII.

Another in the short series of Mr. Moto adventure/mysteries. This particular edition of the book was printed in 1941, the copyright is 1936. The cover art and overall appearance added to my enjoyment of the reading.

This is the first book in the short Mr. Moto series, written in the 1930s.

WWI flying ace and hero, Casey Lee, now a free-lance flyer, finds himself in Japan. He’s been hired by a tobacco company to fly across the Pacific as an advertising stunt. When the flight is cancelled and the company states it will pay his way home by ship. His heavy drinking has taken its toll and this is the latest slam to his deteriorating reputation.

As a result of this current bout, he makes the acquaintance of a Mr. Moto and the beautiful blond White Russian refugee Sonya Karaloff. He immediately falls for Karaloff and is fascinated by Mr. Moto. Moto is an agent of Japan and Karaloff works with Moto…but Casey is unaware of that. . Between these two people, Casey Lee finds himself in a web of intrigue, espionage, danger, romance and a dab of humour.

The Japanese expansionist era is the setting for the story. This was the period before WWII and Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor.

It is interesting to note the difference of Mr. Moto’s character in the book and the movies. Being more familiar with the movies, I noticed this. Yet I still enjoyed the read.

Though I was aware that Marquand was the author of the Mr. Moto detective stories I read this obviously gentle humor about a fictitious golf club, instead. It was entirely predictable, and not very amusing.

review of
John P. Marquand's Your Turn, Mr. Moto
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 27, 2018



Almost 5 yrs ago now, I made a movie called "CHAN(geling)" ( https://youtu.be/XMP8mU1OfSY ) that was meant "basically as a critique of yellowface as a symptom of anti-Asian sentiment in Hollywood in the beginning of the 20th century" (to quote from the YouTube notes). Making this movie involved rewatching (& picking scenes from) a slew of Charlie Chan movies, mostly ones starring Warner Oland. As a side-effect of this, I checked out the Mr. Moto movies too:

"Think Fast, Mr. Moto" (1937)
"Thank You, Mr. Moto" (1937)
"Mr. Moto's Gamble" (1938)
"Mr. Moto Takes a Chance" (1938)
"Mysterious Mr. Moto" (1938)
"Mr. Moto's Last Warning" (1939)
"Mr. Moto in Danger Island" (1939)
"Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation" (1939)

All of these starred Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto. Lorre played maniacs & gangsters more often than not but I vaguely remember his Mr. Moto being portrayed sympathetically. The last of the Mr. Moto movies starring Lorre was in 1939. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Hence, it's no wonder that there weren't any more Mr. Moto movies until one last one called "The Return of Mr. Moto" (1965). In it, Henry Silva starring instead of Lorre, Moto is living in Hawaii & pitted against an ex-nazi. This sort of thing fascinates me given that the Mr. Moto movies wd've been Hollywood attempts to portray a Japanese character as intelligent & decent — but used an actor associated w/ maniac & killer roles — maybe Hollywood was hedging its bets. All this happened before Japanese Americans became 'suspects' as enemies of the US after Pearl Harbor.

"The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in concentration camps in the western interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom lived on the Pacific coast. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens. These actions were ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.

"Japanese Americans were incarcerated based on local population concentrations and regional politics. More than 110,000 Japanese Americans in the mainland U.S., who mostly lived on the West Coast, were forced into interior camps. However, in Hawaii, where 150,000-plus Japanese Americans composed over one-third of the population, only 1,200 to 1,800 were also interned. The internment is considered to have resulted more from racism than from any security risk posed by Japanese Americans. Those who were as little as 1/16 Japanese and orphaned infants with "one drop of Japanese blood" were placed in internment camps.

"Roosevelt authorized the deportation and incarceration with Executive Order 9066, issued on February 19, 1942, which allowed regional military commanders to designate "military areas" from which "any or all persons may be excluded." This authority was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the West Coast, including all of California and parts of Oregon, Washington, and Arizona, except for those in government camps. Approximately 5,000 Japanese Americans relocated outside the exclusion zone before March 1942, while some 5,500 community leaders had been arrested immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack and thus were already in custody. The majority of nearly 130,000 Japanese Americans living in the U.S. mainland were forcibly relocated from their West Coast homes during the spring of 1942."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans

SO, in the spirit of continuing research into the popular perception of Asians, in general, & Japanese, in particular, in this era, I decided to read a Mr. Moto novel. This one, Your Turn, Mr. Moto, was the 1st (1935). The bks must've been fairly popular to be turned into movies so quickly. Given the publication date, it's interesting that Marquand has his American character say that:

"the Japanese are capable people, sensitive and intelligent. Still, although it sometimes seems incredible that our two nations should ever go to war, there is always the thought of war behind the scenes in every nation." - p 7

It's as if Marquand is anticipating war & arguing against it.

The main character, "Casey" Lee, is a decorated American war hero pilot in Japan on business. His career as a glamorous pilot is on the skids & he's become an alcoholic. He gives a press conference.

"["]I'm going to be a goodwill ambassador between Japan and the United States. But I don't care so long as I have a crate to fly. The good old American game of nonsense doesn't bother me."

""You needn't yell about it so," a voice objected. "You're an American, aren't you?"

""That is where I was born," I answered, "but I'm broadminded enough to have my own ideas. I've fought for the Spaniards and the Poles. There are other nations besides the United States—in case you don't know—several others."

""All right, Lee," said someone, "but here you are in a public place. Keep your voice down. A lot of these Japanese are looking at you."

""Let 'em look," I said. "Why should I care if they look? And I'll say anything I damn well please any time at all."" - pp 12-13

Lee goes drunkenely off the deep end, damaging his public image, & is helped back to his room by Mr. Moto, a Japanese detective or espionage expert, who Lee doesn't know. The next day, his advertising flight is cancelled. Soon thereafter, he meets a Russian woman, a spy, named Sonya. I often think of WWII as starting w/ the Japanese invasion of Manchuria — rather than w/ the slightly later nazi invasions. Lee talks w/ Sonya sympathetically about the Japanese there:

""Well, no one objected when your Tsar controlled Manchuria; why should we object when Japan does? It's against the laws of fact to keep eighty million Japanese on a few small islands. If Japan is strong enough to run it, why shouldn't she run Manchuria?"" - p 37

It doesn't take him long to have suspicions about Sonya's motives. Nonetheless, he's strongly attracted to her:

"I did not answer. Whether it was true or not, I was pleased that she liked me, but I still had sense enough to know what she was by then. The ring had told me. It revealed, among other things, that I had never asked her to lunch and that she was a Japanese spy. Not that the idea shocked me. Instead it pleased me. She was a Japanese spy and I was no one—footloose and entirely on my own, being speeded through Tokio in a limousine." - p 41

Lee's sensitivity to Japan's international position continues to be spelled out. Keep in mind that the bk was written a decade before the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

"I could understand Japan's sesnitiveness to any enemy threat from the air. A sight of those unpainted matchboxes of dwellings, with hardly air space between them—and our motor moved through street after street—explained why Japan watched with unconcealed misgivings the contruction of our airplane carriers and the development of Chinese and Russian aviation. A few incendiary bombs were all that would be needed to bring about unimaginable disaster" - pp 43-44

""Think of it this way," she said; "think of 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 Philippines. Where is she going to stop?"" - p 51

""He looks to the east and seems to see the gray wall of the American battle fleet. He looks to the west and seems to see the Russian army and the Russian air force. And China. Mongolia is full of agents["]" - p 53

Lee gets sucked into working for Mr. Moto, who's well-mannered but not completely a sympathetic character b/c there's ruthlessness in his profession. While involved, Lee realizes that he still holds loyalty to the US, regardless of his conflicting feelings:

"Men died for their faith who have never been inside a church, and men die for their country, although they may have spent their lives criticizing all its works. The amazing thing about it is that they are probably surprised by their irrational willingness to die." - p 66

Are we then just insects in a hive?

Trapped onboard a ship, Lee finds himself at Mr. Moto's mercy:

""I am so sorry," Mr. Moto said again, "but you must submit to have them search you. Please."

"A single glance at the stewarts and at Mr. Moto convinced me that any further argument was useless, for the men all had an air of complete efficiency written on them which displayed a familiarity with forms of business not usually practiced by steamship employees." - p 118

Lee arrives in China:

"Whenever my mind brings back their faces and rags, an impression of China comes with them which has never been erased. Paradoxically, perhaps, in spite of their stark poverty and evidences of disease and grinding labor, that impression has always been one of peace. It was a peace born of a knowledge of life and of human relationships. I could understand why China had absorbed her conquerors when I watched that ring of faces. Their bland impatience was impervious to any fortune." - p 140

Nonetheless, 14 yrs after this novel was published, the Chinese Communist Revolution started on October 1, 1949. Perhaps that "grinding labor" was a bit too much after all. Did it get better after the revolution? One hopes so.

"I doubt if any city in the world is more amazing than Shanghai, where the culture of the East and West has met to turn curiously into something different than East and West; where the silver and riches of China are hoarded for safety; where opéra-bouffe Oriental millionaires drive their limousines along the Bund; where the interests of Europe meet the Orient and clash in a sparkle of uniforms and jewels; where the practical realities of Western industrialism meet the fatality of the East." - p 162

All in all, I didn't find the writing in Your Turn, Mr. Moto anything to write home about but as an American writer's take on Asia in the 1930s I found it well worth reading.

Marquand revisits his earlier biography of Dexter, with some more tangents and added material. Still quite a good read.

My third attempt at one of Marquand's novels: this one still is nowhere as good as The Late George Apley, but I mostly enjoyed the story (and I definitely was a spinoff of the pathological liar friend, who was incredibly entertaining).½

An ordinary cold war story interesting only for being the last of the "Mr. Moto" books, a somewhat patronizing take on oriental detectives. i was not impressed at the time, my circle of acquaintance having some oriental friends.

A period tale of post revolution days.
The author's first book.½

An entirely unscholarly but lyrical and lively biography of "Lord" Timothy Dexter, one of New England's strangest characters. And the volume includes the text of Dexter's very odd "Pickle for the Knowing Ones," too.½

Loved this.

****spoiler***

Would have been a 5, but towards the end got a little long in the descriptions of where they'd be flying, the Chinese countryside, etc...just lost me the littlest bit there at the end. Still an all timer though.½

This is the second of Marquand's novels I've read; while it does not rise to anything approaching the level of The Late George Apley, I still enjoyed it well enough. There is a bit too much repetition and simultaneously too much and not enough world-building, somehow, and most of the characters are fairly annoying. But there is some good humor and some amusing New England set pieces in here, too.½

Novel of a Combat General

This is an interesting time to be reading [Thank You, Mr. Moto]. It is clear that [[John Marquand]] admires much about both Chinese and Japanese culture and manners, and is critical of the ex-pat community. He supplies much more historical and cultural information, however filtered through his outsider perspective, than is normally present in thrillers of this era and for a long time to come. It seems to me that Marquand, writing in the 1930s, is doing his best to bring an unprejudiced eye to the people and cultures that his American protagonist both loves and has an incomplete understanding of, that he is encouraging us to question _our_ prejudices. This isn’t completely surprising, coming as he did from a situation where he faced prejudice because of his family’s fall from wealth, and having several aunts who actively worked for abolition. And yet he is so steeped in his culture's racism that he can’t see it when he is perpetuating it himself.

I think this would be a useful tool for people from our dominant cultures today to read. We have learned so much about racism in the eighty-odd years since it was written. We feel pretty Woke. Yet we still are blinkered around so many of our own assumptions. To look at our counterpart from another time makes that disjunct more apparent.½

Quite good.

I could have done with more parts 1 and 3 and a little less part 2.

I agree with the review in neglectedbooks.com

:https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=267

The straight-jacket of high society Boston underpins all that drives the lives of Harry Pulham and his Harvard class. Upbringing determines how your life will be. Marriage, the right job, the endless socializing condemn these characters to an existence that can never satisfy.

As the review above states. this is a sad story about never being able to go back. Rather, one must persevere in marriages that must be made bearable somehow, and with the grind of maintaining status in a social system that is forever dynamic.
An enjoyable read from a writer who has slipped into the past.

This fourth in the series of Mr. Moto books is decidedly more political than the earlier three. And, in fact, that is the real reason to read these books today. They provide historical insight into the views and fears of people across the world on the cusp of war. That war would come. But in Mr. Moto Is So Sorry, the aim is to avert it. All forces arrayed in China appear: the Russians, the two rival factions of the Japanese--the army war party and those not eager to fight-- the Mongols, war lords, the opportunists, the soldiers of fortune, and the unaware Americans caught between them all.

Another turn in the series takes place with the characterization of Mr. Moto. In the first book, Moto was deadly, although polite. During books two and three, he became decidedly more likable. Seemingly aware that he was in danger of turning Moto into another Asian version of the genial Charlie Chan, Marquand, therefore took Moto back to his roots. Mr. Moto Is So Sorry has the Japanese agent more duplicitous and conniving than ever. He is also much more deadly, atlhough he has graduated from the rough stuff. He no long has blood directly on his hands. He maneuvers his victims into place as if they are rats being run through a maze.

Finally, once again, Marquand expresses sympathy for Japan in China, referring to its "Manifest Destiny" to control the large Asian land mass lest it turn upon Japan. Once again, the plot devices are the same as anyone reading the first three Moto books would expect: a young naive American unexpectedly gets himself into trouble because he falls for a beautiful woman and feels he has to do the right thing.

I really think that if these central characters would just listen to Mr. Moto in the first place when he tells them to stay out of things and the situation will resolve itself, then they would all get back home safe and sound all that much earlier. But the reader would miss out on the exotic locales Marquand brings to the page, as he does in this book, with the action moving through Korea to Manchuria and into the wilds of Outer Mongolia. It all makes this a wonderful part of the Moto series. A quick read that takes you right back to the late 1930s and the international intrigue rampant in Asia during the era.

Written right before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Last Laugh, Mr. Moto demonstrated the author's changing attitude towards the Japanese agent, Mr. Moto. In this book, Moto is almost an afterthought. In fact, but to supply a slight twist at the ending, the story might well have proceeded without him. As is, Moto, only comes on scene in detail over half way through the book. This is in strong contrast to the way Moto had been developing in the previous three books, where he was becoming more and more central to the plot. Too, Moto is no longer the far reaching thinker who outsmarts everyone. The last laugh in Last Laugh, Mr. Moto is on Mr. Moto, who is thoroughly deceived by the once drunken American sailor and French Vichy agent. But that should not be a surprise, because Moto is being outwitted at almost every turn of the book. This is no longer the mastermind of espionage we were used to earlier in the series.

This fifth Mr. Moto book was the last before the United States entered World War II--although it was not published until after the attack on Pearl Harbor. And it effectively closed down the entire series. Mr. Moto was never to be seen again during World War II or immediately thereafter. Marquand did allow him to be resurrected briefly in 1956/1957. But only in a Cold War context.

Thus ended the real career of Moto. And it didn't take place in the Far East but on an all but deserted Caribbean island. Marquand did manage to retain the feel of an exotic landscape in this story, but the overall energy is missing. The story itself lags, teeters, and collapses at the end. Not a fitting finale (if you discount the sole Mr. Moto novel written in the mid 1950s as the finale) for the Mr. Moto we came to know in the four previous books.

K.C. Lee, or Casey, as he is called, is the protagonist of the first Mr. Moto book, No Hero. Mr. Moto himself is a Japanese enemy agent, albeit someone of honor, wisdom but murderous efficiency, too.

Set in the early 1930s, No Hero perfectly captures the mood of the times. The rising power of Japan, the naval arms race in the Pacific, and the dismemberment of China all play thematically in Marquand's look at the Orient. And it should be the "Orient," here, not "Asia." Culturally, the Orient of the 1930s signified unknowable peoples and cultures, alien values, and a decadent disregard for life. Race is an acknowledged ideal of the book. No Hero plays up to these motifs and ideals but incorporates them into a convincing "hardboiled" detective story. It should be pointed out that Casey is no detective, not even a spy as are all the other main characters in this novel, but an aviator down on his luck, an adventurer looking for someone to finance his next journey. It is this that entraps him into the ring of spies he must deal with.

And there is a love interest, an effective femme fatale, Sonya. All plays out in the expected fashion of the genre. But it does so against the grand sweep of the Orient--Tokyo, Yokohama, Shanghai, and the Chinese interior. The setting of 1930s Shanghai has now become iconic. But when Marquand was writing this novel, he was one of those helping to establish and define the iconography of the "Mysterious East."

One of John P. Marquand's earlier works, Black Cargo is yet another of his crime mysteries. But in this case, Marquand has dressed his thriller in the clothes of a melodrama set in the 19th century, with a touch of Hawthorne and Poe thrown in. It's the story of Charles Jervaile, the narrator who, in 1872, is looking back at the events of his young adulthood in 1832. The setting is New England, and the intrigue revolves around trading ships, slavers, and even piracy. The event that so haunts Jervaile centers upon his relationship with Eliphalet Greer, a shipping magnate, who it turns out once cheated Jervaile's father of his fortune and ruined him.

In many regards, I suppose, Black Cargo is influenced by Marquand's own personal history. Like Jervaile, he came from a prosperous New England merchant family that was financially ruined, throwing Marquand if not into poverty at least into a much lower financial and social status. Again, like Jervaile, Marquand supposedly felt cheated of his family inheritance and spent his life trying to restore his and his family's lost respect. It was something that Marquand actually never managed. His greatest literary success was the Mr. Moto detective series and other crime novels in a contemporary setting. And his "serious" efforts, such as his Pulitzer prize winner, The Late George Apley, were all seen as hopelessly "middlebrow" by the literary establishment of his time. (The fact, however, is that almost all of Marquand's work is severely underrated, including the crime novels and Mr. Moto, which not only capture the excitement of far off places but reflect the tenor of the times, politically and culturally.)

Black Cargo itself is not one of Marquand's better efforts, although it does once again demonstrate his skill at detailing the rich environment of exotic places--this one being the 1830s, almost 100 in the past. I think he struggles to establish a solid characterization for Charles at the beginning, which seems aimless and muddy most of the time. (This was not a fault with Marquand's later work, where he excelled at hooking the reader into his characters from the first page or two.) The plot, too, seems to disappear into his musings at times. But nevertheless it still makes for a good read. For despite my mild misgivings about some aspects of the plot, Marquand is always an engaging storyteller. And Black Cargo does not let the reader down on that account. Finally, the intricate psychological web built among Charles, Eliphalet, and Eliphalet's nemesis, Richard Parton, gives the novel an extra layer of depth and character. The last scene Marquand pens is as good as any he writes elsewhere.

This second book in the Mr. Moto series is a solid step up over the first one. Here is a much more intense story and more psychologically developed main characters. As with the first book, No Hero, Mr. Moto is a secondary figure to the main protagonist, Tom Nelson, and Eleanor Joyce, an art dealer who has beguiled Nelson and leads him into a nest of spies.

But Moto, too, is much more fully fleshed out than in No Hero. In fact, the entire issue of Japan's occupation of China becomes much more complex and hard to define. Marquand actually expresses some degree of understanding for Japan's "manifest destiny" to rule over at least parts of China and the Asian mainland. The only issue is whether that colonialization will be done at the hands of radicals or more moderate Japanese figures. Mr. Moto is made to represent the more moderate and even friendly face of Japan, although once again, as in No Hero, Moto is also depicted as a ruthless killer, if need be.

The scope of the story takes place over only a couple of days in Peking. But Tom Nelson is changed forever during this time. From being an expatriate satisfied with his easy life in China, he reacquires his loyalty to his country. He also comes to see that there will always be a divide, racially, culturally, and spiritually, between the West and the East.

With its opening set in iconic 1930s Shanghai and the majority of its story told in pre-World War II Honolulu, Think Fast, Mr. Moto had me hooked almost immediately. I have come to relish the Mr. Moto series. Its mood and tenor, its feel for the 1930s, of course, is genuine. It is of that era.

But Marquand also carries off something almost unique for the time when the Mr. Moto novels were being written in the mid to late 1930s--he seems to side with the Japanese. He does it in his earlier novels, and he does it again in Think Fast, Mr. Moto, where the book's sympathies rest almost entirely with the Japanese takeover of Manchuria and their installation of a puppet Chinese regime there. For Marquand, it's entirely reasonable. (And perhaps looking back at things from the vantage of the second decade of the 21st century and the growing threat of China to its neighbors, just maybe it can be seen that Marquand was somewhat justified in his sympathies.)

What is for sure is that Japan seems to sparkle in the Mr. Moto series. Even when none of the action takes place in Japan, Mr. Moto himself brings a sense of dazzle and admiration to Japanese culture and ways. While they weren't a nostalgic view of the world of the 1930s when written, the books are today. It's an effect intensified when the reader gets to experience both pre-war China and Hawaii.

As for the plot, Think Fast, Mr. Moto continues some of the same plot devices used in the first two novels. An American hero, this time a young merchant banker whose family controls a formidable old firm in Shanghai, finds himself drawn into spies, intrigue, and romance. And Mr. Moto continues to operate at the edges of things--although he is much more central to Think Fast, Mr. Moto than in the first two Moto books. By this third book, this has become a winning formula.

Next up? Mr. Moto Is So Sorry.

The very last book in the Mr. Moto series. Written some fifteen years after the fifth book in the series and set in completely different world, Cold War Japan. The tone, too, is different. Marquand is a master of reflecting the attitudes and feelings of the eras in which he writes. For the 1950s, he has utterly captured the sense of paranoia and danger so often associated with the times--and the threat of Communist Russia and China. Even his prose is denser, reflecting the layer upon layer of insecurity his characters express and experience.

This is all so different from the Mr. Moto books of the 1930s. In those volumes the Far East was an extension of the American Frontier. It was a place where a man could redeem himself, start all over, and make his life count. And such was the case in all the prior heroes of the series, recognizing that Mr. Moto was not the hero but the man on the outside, manipulating the world in which the heroes needed to navigate. Not so in Stopover: Tokyo, where the hero, Jack Rhyce, is faced with existential dilemmas that turn him from his cut and dried life of expectations as an American spy. In this final work, all the prior devices and formulas at work for Mr. Moto are abandoned. It is truly a new era. And not a hopeful or positive one.

More so than the last "final" Mr. Moto written just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, this book is a fitting closure to the series. It feels like that much more innocent and energetic world of the 1930s is gone for good. I shall miss Mr. Moto.

Peking. A newspaperman going nowhere fast, a wealthy Wall Street financier who collects Chinese art, the financier's daughter, and her boyfriend all team up for an adventure into the remote interior of North China to acquire rare pieces of Yellow Ming porcelain. Along the way, they encounter bandits, warlords, and duplicitous merchants and a young American educated Chinese mastermind. By book's end, the question of the porcelain is settled after layer upon layer of betrayal and intrigue. As well, the young daughter has ditched her boyfriend and found new life with the reporter.

If this formula sounds familiar to you, then you must have already read the author's series of Mr. Moto books. Because Ming Yellow follows the same development and plot pattern as the Moto books--albeit without Mr. Moto. It is almost as if Ming Yellow was a test run for the subsequent series. Publication history shows that Ming Yellow appeared in print just five months before the first Mr. Moto, No Hero. I'm guessing Marquand also found himself somewhat influenced by Pearl S. Buck and her China novels, particularly The Good Earth, whose description of the blue clad Chinese peasantry spread out across the Chinese landscape, on one hand, and, on the other, channeled like a flowing river through the big cities of China, closely parallels the imagery in Ming Yellow.

Otherwise, as a detective tale and an artifact of the 1930s, the novel still has merit. There isn't much suspense, because the answers to everything are well telegraphed in advance. It is only a matter of seeing which of the multitude of possible routes to the end actually is followed. But somehow you will feel like you are there, in 1930s Peking and the Chinese heartland. Marquand hooks readers early, and keeps them engaged throughout.

Set in South America, during World War II, with German naval officers, Nazi agents, and a gold mine, It's Loaded, Mr. Bauer has all the earmarks of a typical John P. Marquand mystery novel. But there is something different about it. For in this book, Marquand constructs a character, Winslow Greene, who is far and away more complex and inwardly revealed than his prior mystery heroes, such as in the Mr. Moto series or Ming Yellow. In this book, Marquand paints an inner portrait of a misfit coming to terms with those around him, particularly one woman, Henrietta Simmons.

What is usual for Marquand is the culture clash between his hero and heroine, as is their eventual romance. But in this case, Henrietta is not simply a device to drive the story. She is the access point to the hidden Winslow Greene, the man going through the motions of life until he meets her.

Otherwise, this novel contains Marquand's penchant for exotic locales. And he seems to describe them as if he has lived in each one. Never has South America during World War II seemed more vivid in its humidity, green foliage, bothersome insects, and misplaced Spanish and German architecture.

This book takes Marquand's writing to a higher level.