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Zusatztext “Ripped from the headlines! Brodie’s latest outing is already receiving strong buzz and is arguably the best in the series." —Criminal Element Informationen zum Autor Barry Lancet is a Barry Award–winning author and finalist for the Shamus Award. He has lived in Japan for more than twenty-five years. His former position as an editor at one of the nation’s largest publishers gave him access to the inner circles in traditional and business fields most outsiders are never granted! and an insider’s view that informs his writing. He is the author of the Jim Brodie series: The Spy Across the Table ; Pacific Burn ; Tokyo Kill ; and Japantown ! which received four citations for Best First Novel and has been optioned by J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot Productions! in association with Warner Brothers. Visit Lancet at BarryLancet.com or on Twitter @BarryLancet. Pacific Burn CHAPTER 1 SAN FRANCISCO, 7:05 A.M. THE phone call came far too early to herald anything good. “Feel like taking a ride?” Detective Frank Renna asked when I picked up. “Got to get Jenny ready for school soon and I have a high-end client coming into the shop first thing today. She’s eager to drop big money on an Oribe tea bowl.” Oribe is a sometimes-brilliant Japanese ceramic–style named after Furuta Oribe, a sixteenth-century tea master and samurai. I sold the distinctive green-and-white pieces and other Japanese antiques out of my shop on Lombard, west of Van Ness. “Nice to see you making headway on the diplomatic front,” Renna said, “but move it to the back burner and pack your daughter off. This is important. We’re heading out to Napa.” “Are we now?” “Yeah. There’s a Japanese kid we need to see. He doesn’t speak English.” “So put a phone to his ear and I’ll talk to him. No reason we need to drag ourselves out to wine country.” “Kid’s gone into shock and he’s babbling. He’s driving the local badges up a wall.” Renna was a lieutenant with the San Francisco Police Department, and a friend. He’d been instrumental in getting me a consulting job with the SFPD as their local Japan expert, which last came into play with an incident in Japantown. But I wasn’t on call and received no retainer. Our arrangement was on a case-by-case basis, clearly a detail that seemed to have slipped Renna’s mind. “Isn’t there a Japanese speaker closer to Napa?” I asked. “None in their department and they don’t have anyone on file. That’s why they need you.” “How do they know the kid’s Japanese?” “Because that’s what his father was.” “Was?” “Yeah. There’s a body, too.” Ten minutes after Renna’s call, I was waiting outside in the morning fog, ungloved hands snug in the pockets of a down jacket. I watched brief shafts of faint red light penetrate the fog. Heard the sound of a car engine approaching. Saw, finally, a boxy vehicle emerge out of the cottony whiteness and ease to the curb. Renna had arrived in a dusty unmarked SFPD car that looked exactly like a dusty unmarked SFPD car. The passenger-side window buzzed down. “You’re doing a good imitation of something the cat wouldn’t drag in,” my friend said. “I was up until seven talking to Tokyo,” I said. “Finalizing details for the shows. Fell into bed five minutes before you woke me.” The mayor of San Francisco had launched a Pacific Rim Friendship Program to improve the city’s relations with its Asian neighbors, and Japan was up first. I’d rebuffed City Hall’s first two advances to be their liaison, accepting with reluctance only after the big man himself called to press me into service. “Coffee up,” Renna said, passing over a cup of Peet’s dark roast as I collapsed into the front seat. “It’s all...
