Tokyo Suckerpunch : A Billy Chaka Adventure [Paperback]

Isaac Adamson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 7, 2000

Meet Billy Chaka, ace reporter for Cleveland's hottest-selling Asian teen magazine.  He's brash, savvy, and prone to hair-trigger fits of karate.  Billy's in Tokyo to cover the 19-and-Under Handicapped Martial Arts Championship and meet up with his friend Sato Migusion, the international renowned director of such cult film classics as Sex Up the Hotrod, Baby! But Sato never shows. Instead, the girl of Billy's dreams stumbles into a dive bar with tatooed Yakuza mobsters in hot pursuit.  Then Billy will start brawls in swanky corporate sex clubs, be offered a golf club membership by a secret religious order, meet a dog trained in the ways of the Samurai, and race stolen motorcycles through the neon-choked streets of Tokyo. Packed with enough over-the-top fists action to make Jackie Chan cry, and featuring the most lovable uncool hero since Austin Powers, this hilarious send-up is a pop culture potpourri of sub-epic proportion.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This pop romp through the Tokyo of martial arts, yakuza and legendary geishas has more sly smarts than a Hong Kong gangster shoot-'em-up. First-time novelist Adamson hooks the reader with fast action, clever dialogue and all-over atmosphere, while complicating the plot mightily and implausibly. Billy Chaka is a popular columnist for the Cleveland mag Youth in Asia. He's come to Tokyo to cover the 19 and Under Handicapped International Martial Arts Championship. While Chaka is waiting in a bar for the arrival of his old friend filmmaker Sato Migusho, an apparently drunken woman enters and rushes for the ladies' room. Immediately recognizing her as a geisha in disguise, on the lam from disgruntled clients, ChakaDwho has a weakness for geishasDhelps her escape and handles the tough guys with some dandy kickboxing moves. After Chaka learns that Sato has died in a seemingly accidental fire at his secret luxury hideout, the Garden of Earthly Delights, he ducks his reporterly duties and sets out to find the geisha. While on this quest, underwritten by a yakuza leader named Kwaidan and an unnamed religious cult, Chaka keeps stumbling over imponderables in the Sato case, including the news that Sato was about to film an unauthorized version of Chaka's own life, entitled Tokyo Suckerpunch. This novel is all speed and no depth, but that's forgivable in a narration that detours around such marvelous (and doubtful) Japanese pop esoterica as current fashions in Japanese motorcycle gangs and the tape-recorded politesse of Japanese vending machines. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

?If you crossbred "The Big Sleep with "Memoirs of a Geisha and then took its offspring and crossed it with Chinatown you'd end up with Tokyo Suckerpunch--a tongue-in-bloody-cheek quasi-punk-noir tale of death and deception in the superfantastic Far East. Billy Chaka plays a sort of Drew Carey version of Philip Marlowe, which I guess makes Isaac Adamson the Cleveland version of Raymond Chandler. 'Nuff said.?--Bill Fitzhugh, author of "Cross Dressing and "Pest Control"Astonishing. Simply astonishing. Mind-blowing, in fact. Isaac Adamson makes those other Isaacs--Newton, Deutscher and Asimov--look like the slow-witted primates they doubtless were. "Tokyo Suckerpunch will bitch-slap you down and dare you to get up. Do. The pleasure is well worth the pain."--Dennis Perrin, author of "American Fan: Sports Mania and the Culture That Feeds It and "Mr. Mike

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; 1st edition (November 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380812916
• ISBN-13: 978-0380812912
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,178,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Adamson thrills with Chaka's first adventure, November 27, 2000

By 

David Long (Washington DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tokyo Suckerpunch : A Billy Chaka Adventure (Paperback)

An outstanding debut for Adamson! This book is an instant hit - a flowing read of Chaka's adventures in Japan. Just as you think you've got Billy and the story pinned down Adamson masterfully keeps you, and the plot twisted. Enjoy the ride.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tokyo Sucker Punch, November 26, 2000

By 

"foodmart" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tokyo Suckerpunch : A Billy Chaka Adventure (Paperback)

New author with much promise. A new plot that invovles a part of the world that is not often written about in American literature. Get settings, well driven characters. Those who enjoy how reading can provoke your imagination, buy this book!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent...a mystery with a great sense of humor, October 1, 2002

By 

tzadik "tzadik" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tokyo Suckerpunch : A Billy Chaka Adventure (Paperback)

I love these books (also get the next book, Hokkaido Popsicle.) They are a much needed break from the two dominating trends in writing, heavy meandering literature and last-page twist detective books. Billy Chaka rules. I don't want to give anything anway....but COME ON! The guys works for a mag called Youth In Asia. Nuff said. Hat's off to the cover designer...they got the attitude right.