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John P Marquand

John P Marquand

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Mysteries of the East > Japanese > John P Marquand
American, 1893-1960
The Mr   Moto novels of John   Marquand
TitleDate originally publishedeBook available?In print?
Your Turn, Mr Moto1935NoNo
Thank You, Mr Moto1936NoNo
Think Fast, Mr Moto1937NoNo
Mr Moto Is So Sorry1938NoNo
Last Laugh, Mr Moto1941, 1942NoNo
Stopover: Tokyo1956, 1957NoNo

 Announcements
Japanese or Chinese? 
by Michael Robert BroschatNo presence information		 8/12/2008 8:08 PM
Marquand's Mr Moto series stars Mr Moto, a clearly Japanese individual. But Marquand's novels are usually set in China (where he had traveled before the Second World War), and he was visibly supportive of the Chinese cause in fund drives during WWII.
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 Reviews of Mr Moto novels
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Review text
Review of Last Laugh, Mr Moto
Last Laugh continues the structure of the Charlie Chan/Mr Moto novels, where an American male finds himself in a tough situation, and somewhere in the vicinity is Mr Moto.
 
James Koga reminds me that the Mr Moto stories (until the last, written after WWII) were not detective novels. Mr Moto was a Japanese agent of whatever passed for the CIA in Japan before the war. He killed people when they got in the way. He was not a mean man, but--as this novel repeatedly tells us--was a professional. He had one goal--his mission--and anything that interfered must be dealt with in any way necessary.
 
After much description of our down-and-out American, we go off on a search for a secret weapon that has been built into an airplane that was intended for France but was then diverted when the Germans took over France (in 1940). Several folks are after this device, and the only non-professional among this is our unsuspecting hero.
 
There's always a babe, and she doesn't disappoint. She even has a wonderful 1941 line: "I should be home taking care of a man."
 
There's decent action, but the meat of the novel is in its description, both of our hero's thoughts and of the situation he finds himself in.
 
It's a pleasant read, if you can place yourself back in time some 60 years ago.
 
--Michael Broschat, Sep 2008
  		 
John P Marquand

 Links
 Wikipedia biography
 James Koga site dedicated to the Mr Moto novels