Tokyo Doll

John McPartland has crafted an excellent story of mystery and deceit in Occupied Japan circa 1952. As an expat living in Japan for the past decade, I found this work of a rough and tumble Tokyo teetering on the edge of a nightmare situation, a real thrill.

Mate Buchanan, an ex-Army captain in the Korean War, is thrown into a world of espionage when he is recruited by mysterious men, claiming to work for the US government, to retrieve what they claim is a miracle cure for atomic radiation poisoning. It is obvious not is all as it seems when the TOKYO DOLL, a beautiful blonde singer for the armed forces radio steps into the picture. Suddenly Mate is being chased by elements of the military, gangs, and “Red” spies as they all race for what each one believes to be either a cure, or just possibly a world-ending virus!

A pulp novel at its best, this book is pure fun! An though I don't think it was necessarily intended, the idea of the virus-cum-miracle cure, gives the story a slight science fiction atmosphere that will tickle SF fans without turning off non-fans. (Or perhaps it was just the SF-fan in me taking liberties.)

The only demerit is the fact that this is a reprint by a now defunct(?) company called blackmask (their URL emblazoned on the back), and there are at least thirty different punctuation and spelling mistakes (such as the word “not” becoming “riot” – look carefully and the r and i look like an n). It seems to me that this book was scanned possibly with a reader and the computer couldn't make out all the print properly. So if you can overlook these mostly insignificant mistakes, you will have no problems enjoying the work, as there is no detraction from the story.