Your next read will be....what?

[Feliks, Moderator]

The Fate of Admiral Kolchak

Up next for me!

[Samuel]

These two. The first is one of the only English language books about the best damn criminals in all of Asia. From the opening, it seems the Yakuza follow the American General James Mattis' creed. Be polite, professional and alway have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

The opening of the book in question has a Yakuza assassin drinking tea with the author and politely informing him that should he choose to publish a particular story, the author and his family should consider their lives forfeit, as the Yakuza assassin's organization will spare no expense trying to wipe them off the face of Tokyo.

The second is a speculative military thriller with dystopian fiction and conspiracy fiction elements.
Read the previous three books by the author. Blood pumping stuff. This fourth book looks to be no different.

[Feliks, Moderator]

if interested in Japan and want a short read, I recommend this
Ransom

[[deleted user]]

Samuel wrote: "




These two. The first is one of the only English language books about the best damn criminals in all of Asia. From the opening, it seems the Yakuza follow the American General James Mattis' creed. Be polite, professional and alway have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
..."

It seems that the Yakuza would probably have agreed with Winston Churchill when he said 'if you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite with him.'

[Samuel]

Michel wrote: "Samuel wrote: "




These two. The first is one of the only English la..."

You got that right Michel
(good catch, that was Churchill's rebuttal to his subordinates moaning about how the declaration of war on Japan seemed to be too 'nice' and 'polite)

Gotten up to the bit where the author is cultivating a source, namely a member of a Yakuza branches upper management. The source contacted the author (at the time working for Japan's largest newspaper) to help him find out someone spreading a fatal career ending rumor.

The rumor basically had the police falsely believing the source had cultivated an informant within the police department while at the same time made some of the source's fellow members believe he was grassing on the organization. Face was being increasingly lost and the source needed to find a way to eliminate the problem.

The source explained to the author over tea that standard procedure for members discovered as police informants involves being shanghaied off to a quite forest in the hills, being forced to dig ones grave, then being clobbered by a blunt instrument, and finally dying from a gunshot to the head delivered by a suppressed handgun.

To conclude the story, the author found out the information which the source was looking for, delivered the name of the individual to his source

(turns out it was a rival who wanted to take the organization into dealing speed, while the source, who disagreed vehemently with him was content with nefarious extortion and highly complex property shenanigans, but also didn't want the head of his family who had been a drug addict in his youth to fall back on bad habits.)

and after that, they never spoke of what happened, again and established a mutually beneficial relationship with the Yakuza man acting as the author's best source on the events in the criminal sphere of the region he was covering.

[Samuel]

Michel wrote: "Samuel wrote: "




These two. The first is one of the only English la..."

Basically like other parts of Japanese society, Japanese criminals are consummate professionals. Their methods of operation have been honed down to a 'T".

Organized, effective and if you land in their gunsights (although they only break out the firearms for deathly serious matters ) totally devastating and ruthless. It's probably why they're Asia's biggest criminals.

And then we have the fact anti-mob legislation has never been implemented properly in Japan. Turns out they're legal! They happen to have the same rights as any Japanese corporate institution

[Samuel]

Samuel wrote: "Michel wrote: "Samuel wrote: "




These two. The first is one of the ..."

It's astounding to find that Japan, for all the gloss, spit and economic development is just as corrupt as most Asian states. The difference being is that like most things Japanese, it's an art form. Most of the time the shenanigans are pulled off with such finesse and skill, outsiders never notice a single thing.

[Alan]

I'll try to get through Ben Coes' Power Down and hopefully read all of his books. It looks pretty technical thus far, so I'm not sure I'll make it. I'll probably go back to reading Barry Eisler.

[David]

I recently finished Sean Parnell's third book in the Eric Steele series:Martin Dugard
by Sean Parnell
I've been enjoying the series but it appears the fourth is the last book, for now.

I'm almost done with O'Reilly's book:
by Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard

[Feliks, Moderator]

H'mmm. I dunno. In the West, seem me as if the hyper-individualized, hyper-politicized world we got now is extinguishing fiction.

What I mean is: no one wants to open their minds. Traditionally, books turn control of our experience over to someone else. The flow of ideas switches to the author. Temporarily relinquishing our own taste broadens the mind.

But nowadays its as if we regulate our reading with little VCR buttons the same way we navigate our music playlists and customize our movie playlists. We only want the books which reinforce their own tastes and the ideas we want to hear.