Review: Kill Me in Yokohama by Earl Norman (Burns Bannion #3)

Click on cover to view on
Amazon

This is number three in the Burns Bannion series and the first one available for Kindle. All books in the series published to date are available at Google Books and B&N Nook. My reviews  of the first two books can be found here: Kill Me in Tokyo, Burns Bannion #1, Kill Me in Shimbashi, Burns Bannion #2.

My fondness of these books continues but I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the previous two. It is still a fun read but I'd rate it four stars rather than five.

Kill Me in Yokohama picks up after the events in book two, Kill Me in Shimbashi. Burnsie is getting serious about his illegal private detective business but has to fly under the notice of Inspector Ezawa of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police who threatens to have him deported if he steps out of line. Bannion's solution is an anonymous newspaper ad for his services:

Will Do Anything for Money —

Repeat—anything! Write to

Box 113 Tokyo Central Post Office

This is Burnsie's idea of avoiding notice.

The ad pays off and Burns gets a response inviting him to meet at the Phoenix Lounge Bar. About his potential client Bannion notes:

The stationary was of good quality. The penmanship indicated a woman, and the sandlewood scent meant a real woman.

Arriving at the bar, Bannion is accosted by a drunk German representative of a chemical company. Brushing him off, he spots a beautiful (naturally) woman he takes to be his client but also notes a man at a nearby table who is also watching her. ...he looked for all the world like Mr.Moto playing Peter Lorre playing Mr. Moto. You might not know that Peter Lorre actually played the Japanese detective Mr. Moto  in films. If you are a person of a certain age this gives you an immediate mental image of what this guy looks like. I thought this an amusing description given I'm that person of a certain age. The client is Mariko Melson, one of Japan's top fashion models. She has a younger brother who has fallen under the influence of an older man who has a scheme to capture the world. She wants the man to leave Japan though Bannion figures she really means she wants him gone, dead or alive. Bannion accepts and, with three key figures now identified, another thrilling adventure is locked in and the reader knows that a simple case will turn out to be bigger, more complicated, more deadly, and will have Bannion fighting for his life.

The first three books in the series have all had their jumping off point in bars. It will be interesting to see if that continues.

This series continues the non-PC style set in the first two books with sexist attitudes and asian stereotypes. Bannion has yet to meet a woman he cant spend paragraphs describing in lush detail. But, honestly, I think the author was playing up those aspects deliberately. I think a case can be made that the author is parodying the hardboiled detective and men' adventure thrillers. But as I point out in the reviews of books 1 and 2, the Japanese women hold their own against Bannion's advances which further make me think the author is playing with stereotypes. After all, Norman was an old Asian hand, living in Japan for many years and I'm sure knew his subjects well. The author does give Bannion a boost in maturity here. In the previous book, Kill Me in Shimbashi, Bannion's, pursuit of a teenage ponytail chick, Toni-chan, almost cost him his life. Here he muses to himself, I had decided to go back to being my age. A small step but it makes him less creepy.

Being a long time fan of the hardboiled detective, I love the way the author plays with Bannion's accidental detective. He frequently makes self-deprecating about his detecting. I don't know how his trench coat has survived three adventures. And like all good hardboiled detectives, Bannion has a white knight side; there is a woman who needs saving. There is some poignancy about that woman in this book. She's a side character but Norman uses her to make a point.

The karate action continues to be well done and for Bannion, ranks at least as high as his interest in women. He gets in trouble because of women and karate saves his life. Here Bannion gets to use a karate technique mentioned in the previous books.

The reason I dropped this book a star is that the big problem behind the simple case is weak. Burns didn't react when Mariko said that the older man influencing her brother had a scheme to capture the world which turns out to be mostly true though only a particular aspect of the world. It had me going Wait, how could you not pick up on that!. The way it is laid out doesn't seem like it would have much of a chance of succeeding much being sustainable. But perhaps that is just the way of scheming megalomaniacs. Also, the younger brother acts like a hip young western cat who's seen too many American movies. He speaks almost entirely in slang. Annoyance with the brother may just be a factor of the time span between when the book was written and reading it today but is a bit much and, I think, mostly played for laughs.

We're also getting a feel for the relationship between Bannion and Inspector Ezawa. While Ezawa threatens to have Bannion deported in every conversation, I'd say he also looks at Bannion as a useful idiot. Give him on a long leash and see what he stirs up. Then yell at him but claim credit for solving the case.

So, 50+ years later, I'm the Burns Bannion books are fun to read and a little subversive toward the hardboiled detective/men's adventure thriller genres.

Keywords: Keywords: private detectives, Japan, hardboiled detectives, pulp adventure stories, thrillers, action adventure