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. ( )

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. ( )

As in the previous two Mr. Moto books, the main characters are a callow young man and an independent, beautiful young woman. Pretty much inadvertently, the callow young man and the independent young woman find themselves enmeshed in some form of international intrigue. The callow young man feels a need to protect the young woman and she feels a need to maintain her independence. In the background, Mr. Moto, a Japanese spy master working for his Emperor, is pulling strings to further the aims of his country, which also happen to be in the best interests of the in-over-their-heads young people.

In this particular book, the young man is from a banking family that is prominent in Asia. He is sent to Shanghai to learn the business, but is fairly soon packed off to Hawaii where there are some problems involving the family bank and also involving a gambling institution run by the independent, lovely young woman, who also happens to be a sort of black-sheep cousin. Or at least her father was. Well, the gambling institution has been taken over by gangsters who are in the money laundering business. Their particular laundering is to find a way to transfer funds from Chinese businesses to Manchuria/Manchukuo to support the rebels trying to take it back from the Japanese. Mr. Moto, of course, wants to keep Manchuria/Manchukuo under Japanese control.

It's a pretty good story all in all and well worth snagging from our friends running the Canadian Gutenberg site. Were I a competent writer and were I into FanFic, I think it would be rather fun to rework this tale in some way so as to involve Hawaii's favorite detective, Charlie Chan. An intellectual duel between Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto would be quite fun. There would be very very interesting problems, which would be very very nice to engage, as Mr. Moto might say. Charlie is ethnic Chinese, and has little use for Japanese, whereas Mr. Moto is Japanese and has little use for Chinese. But they are both decent people, and would likely find a way for things to work out for the best of all involved.

Whatever, like the Charlie Chan books, the Mr. Moto books are well written and interesting to read. Please help yourself to Charlie Chan (via Gutenberg.Australia) and Mr. Moto (via Gutenberg.Canada). ( )