Tokyo Suckerpunch: A Billy Chaka Adventure Book

When Tadpole () and I met in Chicago he gave me Tokyo Suckerpunch. I gave him a purple wrestling mask and requested he wear it for a profile pic. He's a better gift-giver than me. Tokyo Suckerpunch is like an action movie plot recounted by an intelligent guy at a party after way too much marijuana but before everybody gets all tired and hungry.

The novel's main character/narrator, Billy Chaka, writes for a Cleveland-based magazine aimed at Asian youth. He's in Japan covering a martial arts tournament for handicapped youth. Chaka has built up a steady stream of relationships and credibility in the Japanese underground and, after an unfortunate encounter with Japanese mobsters, falls into a search for a beautiful Geisha named Orange Blossom. Tokyo Suckerpunch reads like a frenetic movie script and I wouldn't be surprised if Adamson was hedging his bets on potential film rights. This book should be a movie. And not a film. A movie, like the kind you see on a Saturday afternoon in the summer and the theater AC is cranked down to 58 degrees and you expect to see cars blow up and people engage in elaborate, highly rehearsed martial arts sequences. Adamson is at his best with quick dialogue snippets and quirky character development, e.g. the private investigator with small bodyguards hiding in his office wall or the mob leader so afraid of earthquakes he keeps helicopters on call at all times. You want to read this book quickly. Adamson sometimes gets bogged down in his narrator's internal reflection; he overuses Chakra's reflections as a narrative device. And the author also resolves pretty much the entire plot in the last twenty pages, leaving enough loose ends for about ten sequels. It's no accident that this book is subtitled "Billy Chaka Adventure #1". Would I read #2? Yes, especially if I were looking for a quick summer read and didn't want to leave the loving arms of my air-conditioned prison of a bedroom.

So thanks, Tad. Tokyo Suckerpunch was fun like a solid summer blockbuster for which you don't want to apologize. And yes, Tad, I'm still waiting for that profile picture. Don't make me come down there.