The Buddha Kiss (OME) [Paperback]

Tasker Peter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 1996

The New York Times called Peter Tasker's first thriller, Silent Thunder, "pure entertainment" that "pulls out all the fictional stops yet does so convincingly." With Buddha Kiss, Tasker takes his sophisticated brand of suspense to a whole new level.

Richard Mitchell used quick wits and a degree in Japanese Studies to turn his job as a bike messenger in central London into a position as securities analyst in Tokyo. Those wits should help make him a financial whiz-kid -if his career isn't ruined first by his having to recommend the underwriting of a run-down company at the insistence of his new boss, Yazawa, a strange, mercurial man who seemed to appear out of the blue three months ago. Meanwhile, Kazuo Mori, a maverick private eye in the world's most conformist society, is trying to retain his independence as he investigates the murder of a friend's daughter. His inquiries seem to be leading him toward the radical Peace Technology cult-it's just that any time he makes progress, somebody tries to kill him.

These are minor tremors from a disruption deep in Japan's unstable structure, a disruption so deep-from huge financial fraud to the narcotic ambitions of a religious zealot-so lethally crazy and so diabolically organized, it will destroy and reshape worlds.

Buddha Kiss is a superlative thriller with echoes of the Kobe earthquake, the Nick Leeson/Barings scandal, and the Tokyo subway gas attacks-though it was, uncannily, written before any of these stories made news. Gritty, fast-paced, filled with unique characters, and absolutely sizzling with the oddities and obsessions of Tokyo life, Buddha Kiss is a vivid journey to the complex heart of Japan

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Buddha Kiss is a thriller that glows with the confidence of its insider perspective, blending headlines about cult poisonings in Japan and tales of Hong Kong money-market manipulation with a strong fictional basis. Peter Tasker, a British writer based in Tokyo where he also works as a financial analyst, sets up two unusual investigators: a Japanese private eye named Mori and a British securities expert named Mitchell. He turns the pair loose on separate murder and swindling cases that lead them to the bizarre Peace Technology cult and a sushi banquet featuring the dreaded delicacy of poisonous blowfish. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

In his second outing, Tokyo p.i. Kazuo Mori (Silent Thunder, 1992) unwittingly takes on some of modern Japan's most powerful constituencies: organized crime, the shadowy figures who move in- country securities markets, and cultists. When asked by a casual friend to investigate the mysterious death of his daughter, Mori gets appreciably more than he bargained for. The trail soon leads him to a quasi-religious sect called Peace Technology, whose charismatic but unstable sansei is known only as Ono. In search of answers, the stubbornly independent detective (who was expelled from a prestigious university 25 years earlier for his radicalism) infiltrates the group. At the same time, Rick Mitchell, an ambitious young Yorkshireman working as a junior analyst in the Tokyo branch of an American brokerage firm, is ordered by his flamboyant boss Terumasa Yazawa to draft an upbeat report on Otaman Corp., a down-at-the-heels trading house that's about to float a megabuck bond issue. Worried, Mitch checks more closely on the uncommunicative company. What he doesn't learn until almost too late is that the fast-fading mini-conglomerate has effectively been taken over by the Yakuza (Dai Nihon's Mafia), which is using it as cover for the manufacture of a designer drug dubbed ``Buddha Kiss.'' Ono is in on the deal as well, using the hallucinogenic downer as a means of keeping his followers in line. Mitch, getting too close to the truth with his independent inquiries, is abducted and spirited to Oshima, an island in the Sagami Sea where Mori is undergoing indoctrination with other Peace Technology recruits. Marked for liquidation, Mori and Mitchell join forces at the eleventh hour to escape the clutches of their captors and liberate the brainwashed cultists. Another engrossing and illuminating thriller from Tasker, an expatriate British securities executive who understands that the world's most homogeneous and obedient society has a rather full measure of outlaws. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Orion Publishing Co; Reissue edition (November 4, 1996)
• ISBN-10: 0752802402
• ISBN-13: 978-0752802404
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,029,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting Japanese Thriller, February 5, 2003

By 

H. Noelle K. Snow "noeller67" (Deerfield, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Buddha Kiss (Paperback)

I really enjoyed this book! It was tough at the beginning (getting used to the Japanese character names and organizing who is who) but once I got that figured out it was terrific. I have read only one other book based in Japan and ironically my husband was reading it ("Memoirs of a Geisha") at the same time I was ready this one. Wow, are they different! This is a great thriller with twists, turns and a story line that is new and fresh. It also gives you a look into current day Japan from the point of view of a "foreigner". The dialogue is so good and really made me feel like I was there and getting a real flavor for how the Japanese communicate with each other. I can't wait to read "Silent Thunder" and "Samarai Boogie" both of which I understand use the Mori private eye character again.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A modern day "Shogun"., October 20, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Buddha Kiss (Paperback)

Tasker takes the reader to the heart of Japanese society known to few foreigners. From the inner sanctums of Shinto lore to the sleazy bath houses, one reads about the entire spectrum of modern day Japan through two wonderful and memorable characters, Mori and Mitchell. The perfect New-York to Tokyo plane book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is NOT "Memoirs of a Geisha"!, September 2, 2002

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Buddha Kiss (Paperback)

I was a bit confused for the first couple of chapters of this galloping mystery, but then I realized that the principal characters were confused, too. There are three main proponents: Richard Mitchell, semi-novice financier from Yorkshire who has relocated to Tokyo to seek his fortune, Kazuo Mori, hard-boiled private detective (or "economic and social researcher"), who takes on a case involing the mysterious death of and old friend's daughter, and Tamura, assistant manager of one of the most important branches of one of Japan's most important banks, who wakes to find himself in a love hotel with the corpse of an attractive young woman. There are several memorable nemesises, too: Yazawa, the financial whiz-kid who drives Mitchell on with his unpredictable style, Ono, founder and godhead of a new cult, who seems to be behind the deaths of several of his female followers, and "Snowbird," a warped but very professional yakuza. As the several threads begin to draw closer together, and as you begin to discern what the real threats are, you'll find yourself staying up late to finish the book. Tasker is himself an English financier resident in Japan, and he writes with authoritative knowledge of both those worlds, so the story resonates with verisimilitude. Nor was I distracted by the "foreignness" of the world the author, and the characters, so ably move in.