Assignment Find Cherry

Curt Stone #5: “Assignment: Find Cherry” by Jack Seward. The Far East Investigations is hired by the Monday Club to find relatives of a Shogun whose ship was sunk with almost two tons of gold aboard. There was supposedly a map and another group, called the Pure Nation Society, whose members wish to return to the old ways, want the gold to finance their rise to power. Curt Stone locates a surviving relative in Hawaii, a beautiful nightclub dancer named Cherry, and buys the map from her. But someone may be a spy in the Monday Club, working with the Pure Nation Society, as the enemy knows his every step. This was another nice plot, but the author’s writing remains a bit awkward. Sentences in Japanese, then repeated in English, slowing down the pace; plus, he tells a lot of the action instead of showing it, which would make for better reading. This was the final story in the series, and I don’t know why it was discontinued. The covers were typical men’s action scenes, with sexy women, and Curt Stone shown with a gun that he seldom carried. I guess guns were illegal in Japan, even for a private detective. A fun read, however.

The Chinese Pleasure Girl

Curt Stone #4: “The Chinese Pleasure Girl” by Jack Seward. Curt Stone’s Far East Investigations is hired by an ex American CIC agent to find out who is trying to sabotage his bars in Yokosuka. A pretty good plot, with a nice bit of action, and we see a lot of Yokusuka. It’s a fun read, but we still have the main problems with this author. He’s trying to teach us the Japanese language in a fiction novel. We get dialogue in Japanese and repeated in English, which distracts from the flow of the story; plus, just when something is about to happen, he gives us a page or two of documentary on some aspect of Japan, its history, or a subject he wants us to know about Japan. By the time we get back to the scene of action we’ve forgotten what was happening. It slows the pace of the story drastically. It’s a good series, and the interaction between the main characters is fun., I’m just not interested in learning the language, and I can look up whatever information I need on Japan. The author would have been better off sticking to the action.

Curt Stone #3

Curt Stone #3: “The Frogman Assassination” by Jack Seward. A Japanese ex CIC agent has gone over to the Chinese, and attempts to assassinate the Japanese Emperor; instead he kills the Japanese Prime Minister. Colonel Gilbert of CIC wants Stone to find the killer, nicknamed Pork, and kill him. It isn’t an easy task, as Pork was a shrewd agent, and knew how to avoid capture. However, he had a couple Achilles heels, one being good whiskey, the other blonde white girls. Stone puts his network of contacts on the lookout in the bar districts, using a couple blondes as bait. This was another good story, a little better than the first two, but Curt Stone is not as tough as our other Tokyo private eye, Burns Bannion. Maybe he should have hired Bannion to do the job. A fun read, regardless.