Roppongi & Atami For Trade

FOR TRADE

Kill Me In Roppongi & Kill Me In Atami

Fadingshadows40@gmail.com

Burns Bannion #9: “Kill Me In Roppongi” by Earl Norman (Norman Thompson). In this final novel of the “Kill Me In …” series, Hedges sends ex-Stars & Stripes newspaperman, Addis Racquets to him for help. Racquets now runs his own small paper, and has received a death threat along with an ad. He hires Bannion to answer the ad, and find out what’s going on. Although Inspector Izawa and Hedges are mentioned, they have no active part in this story. It involves the IOON (International Order of Nationalists) Nazi organization. They are running an illegal abortion scheme in Japan, bringing women from all over the world that need an abortion, then blackmailing them to work as their sex spies. Unfortunately, this was the final Burns Bannion novel. Not a great series, but definitely a fun one with sex and karate as the main theme. The series was published by Berkley in the U.S., but distribution in the Far East must have been poor, so Norman Thompson, who had contacts with the military and Stars & Stripes, had the series printed by a Japanese publisher under his ERLE BOOKS Logo. This enabled him to get his books on the racks in the PX system of military bases, where millions of G.I.s became familiar with them. I don’t know if Berkley was aware of this double-dealing or not. Sadly, the ERLE Editions seem to have been printed without editing or proofing, so there are many typos in them. If readers have a choice, buy the American editions published by Berkley instead. Actually, I’m not sure if Berkley even published the last two stories or not.  This one is only 49k, kind of short for a paperback. I have a pdf of this one for trade.

Burns Bannion #6: “Kill Me In Atami” by Earl Norman (Norman Thompson). This one could have been a Bud & Lou comedy film. Bannion is hired by a wealthy widow, Mrs. Hikonami. She wants a renter removed from her estate. Legal action would take years, but she wants Bannion to see that he leaves early, even if it means a karate chop to back of the neck. But there’s more to the case, as he soon finds out. The widow’s husband was murdered by a karate blow to the back of the head, forcing the head into a sharp instrument, but everybody says it was a suicide. En route to the estate, Bannion picks up a ‘wooley booger’ girl (read the book to find out) who loves sex, but someone hangs him and pins a suicide note on his chest. Arriving at the mansion, he finds the widow’s sister, Fujiwara, and Mrs. Hikonami’s daughter, Asako.  The three women are exact images of each other. Over the next three nights, the power goes off, and one of them enters his room to seduce him, but he never knows which one. Except that it isn’t the 300-pound maid, who also knows karate. There are hidden passages behind a bookcase, tunnels beneath the mansion, and monsters lurking about the tunnels and an abandoned sanitarium nearby. More supposed suicides happen, men hanging in the tunnel, and Bannion’s wooley booger girl inside the sanitarium. This is one of my favorites in the series. Thought Hedges is mentioned, he isn’t in this story. Inspector Ezawa introduces Bannion to Mrs. Hikonami, and then we don’t see him any more. Oddly, this is the only Burns Bannion novel not reprinted in the ERLE Edition in Japan. It’s only available in the American Berkley 1962 printing. I might add at this point that the Berkley editions were well edited, while the Japanese ERLE editions were not. This Berkley edition paperback is for trade.

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 #2 The Eurasian Virgins

Stone #2: “The Eurasian Virgins” by Jack Seward. An American heiress, who wants him to find her brother’s out-of-wedlock daughter, contacts Curt Stone. Gail Owen wasn’t aware of the child until her parents died. The girl, Rose Hasegawa, is now 16, and has been taken by a Japanese gang working the flesh market for young virgins. Stone puts his Far East Investigations to work on the case, and he personally looks for the girl. A good story, but the author tries to teach the reader the Japanese language and culture, often including the English interpretation after the Japanese dialogue, slowing the pace of the story drastically. This would be okay if the reader was learning Japanese, but isn’t a good idea for a fiction novel. Unfortunately, there is very little action in this novel. Published during the same period as Earl Norman’s Burns Bannion, it lacked the fun and karate action that Bannion brought the reader. Still, it is a good plot.

Kill Me In Atami

I have a duplicate copy of Earl Norman's Kill Me In Atami. I'm looking for any of these in trade: Kill me On The Ginza, Kill Me In Yokohama, Kill Me In Yokosuka, or Kill Me in Roppongi. I'm looking for only the American Berkley editions, not the Erle editions. Trade offers should be emailed to fadingshadows40@gmail.com

Kill Me In Tokyo

Kill Me In Tokyo by Earl Norman (Norman Thompson) from 1958. This novel kicked off the Burns Bannion series, though the karate champ didn't catch on until the 1960s. Only nine thrill-packed stories were published by Berkley, followed by Erle Editions in Japan. After nine stories set in Japan, Norman changed the locale to Hong Kong, and published a final novel, Hang Me In Hong Kong, featuring a new character named Rick Shaw.

I have the complete Burns Bannion series, but lacking the 10^th, featuring Rick Shaw. I hope this Blog will bring other fans together. If anyone has the Rick Shaw story, I would love to read it, even a photocopy or pdf. I have Links posted to Yahoo Groups for discussion, or leave your comments here.

Although I do have thousands of comic books and paperbacks for trade, I don’t have any duplicates of the Earl Norman books. If anyone has access to duplicates, you might let other fans know. I will be glad to pass the word.