Dead Man Calling [Paperback]

Gavin Black (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1977

A TALE OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE SET IN TOKYO. Paul Harris is an outsider - an unconventional businessman attempting to assimilate into Asian culture. His operations in the Far East bring him wealth and adventure, but not without risk. For while opportunities are plentiful, so too are a number of ruthless opponents, and more often than not Paul Harris finds himself a man on the run, pursued by a violent and dangerous enemy. It is rare to find, in a novel of suspense, pictures of a distant country that are as vivid, authentic, colourful and moving as Gavin Black gives us here: or characters so distinctive and mysterious. (A PAUL HARRIS NOVEL)

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

‘Paul Harris is up there in the major league’ – The New York Times; ‘Slick and fast . . . top marks’ – The Guardian

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

About the Author

Gavin Black was the pseudonym used by Scottish author Oswald Wynd to publish his highly successful thrillers. Born in 1913 to missionary parents in Japan, he was educated at The American School in Tokyo until his family moved to the United States where he undertook a year of high school in Atlantic City. Upon graduation, he attended The University of Edinburgh until the outbreak of WWII. He then joined the Scots Guards and was sent to Malaya with British Intelligence, attached to the Indian Army. After the Japanese invasion, he was captured in the jungle and spent more than three years in a Japanese prison camp in Hokkaido where his fluency in the language aided both himself and other prisoners of war. It was when he returned to Scotland via the Philippines that he thought to try his hand at a 'first novel' contest run by Doubleday in America. His entry Black Fountains (about a young American-educated Japanese woman embroiled in the war) won him both first prize and the staggering sum of $20,000. He went on to make his fame and fortune writing critically acclaimed thrillers as Gavin Black, most of which were set in Asia and featured Paul Harris. He died in 1998. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins Distribution Services; New impression edition (August 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0006147852
• ISBN-13: 978-0006147855
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tokyo setting, July 7, 2011

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M. Poller (Israel) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dead Man Calling (Paul Harris) (Kindle Edition)

This is an early one by this author. The setting is postwar Japan after WW2. The main character who appears in other books is a wealthy man caught up in a murder and the Japanese police are after him so he has to escape. The situations he gets into are pretty interesting such as an abandoned monastery with big rats. He has no love for the Japanese having been imprisoned during the war. He is trying to buy some plans from the dead man which leads him to go after the secretary and from this he runs into a bunch of unsavory characters including a bunch of ex-pats. Just for the time period and the setting I can recommend this book.