A group of seemingly-unrelated deaths, culminating with that of his own father by apparent suicide, drives FBI agent Jack Graham across the Pacific to Atami, Japan. There, he discovers a country rife with economic success (this is the early 90's, remember, where the limits of Japan's bubbling economy had yet to be touched) which has bred corruption into the very fabric of society. Chief among them are the zaibatsu, a group of extremely old, and extremely wealthy, family-owned corporations which exert influence across the strata of Japanese business, politics, and even law enforcement.
Working alone, without the backing of the FBI or even his own government, Graham's search for his father's killer takes him deeper and deeper into a culture he barely understands, where he does not speak the language, and is instantly recognized as an outsider. Confronted by deadly assassins, watched by the yakuza, and paired with a lovely young policewoman with whom he finds himself falling in love, Graham has vowed to close this case or die trying -- and there are dozens of people in Japan who are more than happy to assist him with the latter.
An American cop on the loose in Japan on a personal vendetta while being pursued by the yakuza. Hmmm, I wonder if David Klass saw Black Rain and decided, "I could do better than that." It would have been hard to miss, since Michael Douglas was everywhere in the late 80's, but if that was what drove Klass to pen Samurai, Inc., then I'm glad to say he succeeded. Americans running around Japan, solving problems the Japanese are incapable or unwilling to solve is a hoary trope these days, but since Klass spent several years living and teaching in Japan, he's better suited to write a story like this. Think of it as a less-philosophical take on Eric Van Lustbader's The Ninja, with some light sex and a couple of stand-out death scenes (the opening airplane crash is a doozy!), and you'll have a fine time.
There's a secondary plot running through the story about a mysterious kid in a Swiss boarding school that doesn't seem related to anything at first, but this side-plot actually consumes the final third of the book, and though I guessed the reveal before Klass got there with Graham and Misako, it's still a well-executed rail jump. The only real complaint I have with the story is how fast Misako and Graham fall in love, and a couple of clumsy sex scenes including one which comes entirely out of left field towards the end of the book. Espionage and police procedure are Klass's strong suits -- romance, at least here, is entirely out of his league.
That said, if you are interested in Japanese culture, especially a snapshot of what it looked like during the boom of the late 80's and early 90's before the bubble burst, Samurai, Inc. is a competent little thriller. Klass got his start writing young adult literature, which he still does today. Samurai, Inc. appears to be his lone adult novel before he went back to writing more for teens. Whether he prefers writing for a younger audience (and there's nothing wrong with that, since he seems to have found great success doing it) or this novel just didn't sell very well so he didn't bother with another try, it's worth tracking down if you're a fan of his other books. An easy four out of five from me.
Note: the cover image above was scanned from my own copy of the book; the scanner isn't that great at capturing the silvery mirrored finish of the cover. Sorry about that.
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