Product Description

During the grand opening celebration of the new American headquarters of an immense Japanese conglomerate, the dead body of a beautiful woman is found. The investigation begins, and immediately becomes a headlong chase through a twisting maze of industrial intrigue and a violent business battle that takes no prisoners.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118387 in Books
• Published on: 1992-11-23
• Released on: 1992-11-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 416 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345380371
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
A young American model is murdered in the corporate boardroom of Los Angeles's Nakomoto Tower on the new skyscraper's gala opening night. Murdered, that is, unless she was strangled while enjoying sadomasochistic sex that went too far. Nakomoto, a Japanese electronics giant, tries to hush up the embarrassing incident, setting in motion a murder investigation that serves Crichton ( Jurassic Park ) as the platform for a clever, tough-talking harangue on the dangers of Japanese economic competition and influence-peddling in the U.S. Divorced LAPD lieutenant Peter Smith, who has custody of his two-year-old daughter, and hard-boiled detective John Connor, who says things like "For a Japanese, consistent behavior is not possible," pursue the killer in a winding plot involving Japan's attempt to gain control of the U.S. computer industry. Although Crichton's didactic aims are often at cross-purposes with his storytelling, his entertaining, well-researched thriller cannot be easily dismissed as Japan-bashing because it raises important questions about that country's adversarial trade strategy and our inadequate response to it. He also provides a fascinating perspective on how he thinks the Japanese view Americans--as illiterate, childish, lazy people obsessed with TV, violence and aggressive litigation. 225,000 first printing; BOMC main selection.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA-- The celebrity-studded opening of a huge Japanese office building is marred by the murder of a beautiful American woman. Lt. Peter Smith is called in to investigate and is requested to bring along John Connor, an expert on Japanese culture and fluent in the language. So begins a riveting tale that combines suspense, technology, and a full-scale economic battle for survival. YAs will have no problem following the complex corporate business schemes described by Crichton, whose loyalties are obviously with America. Readers who fear that the Japanese are taking over the U. S. economy will not be reassured.
- Katherine Fitch, Lake Braddock Secondary School, Burke, VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
The Yellow Menace returns in Crichton's shocking, didactic, enormously clever new mystery-thriller--only now he wears a three- piece suit and aims to dominate America through force of finance, not arms. ``The Japanese can be tough,'' says one character here. ``They say `business is war,' and they mean it.'' How much they mean it Lt. Peter J. Smith, LAPD, learns when he's assigned to the murder of an American call-girl at the gala opening of the L.A. high-rise headquarters of the Japanese conglomerate Nakamoto. There, Smith butts heads with men whose alien mannerisms he can't interpret and who insist on their own ``private inquiry.'' Fortunately, he's joined by legendary Japan-savvy cop John Connor, the real hero here, a Holmes to narrator Smith's Watson. At the crime scene and thereafter, Connor, whose love/hate for the Japanese stems from years lived in their land, interprets Japanese ways to Smith: ``Control your gestures. Keep your hands at your sides. The Japanese find big arm movements threatening...'' Connor's commentary is always fascinating but, as the serpentine case coils on, numerous instances of Japanese financial dirty dealing are cited by characters who disparage the Japanese sufficiently (``The Japanese don't believe in fair trade at all''; ``Japanese corporations in America...think they're surrounded by savages'') to bathe Smith--and the novel--in xenophobic paranoia: It's not by chance that the only likable Japanese here is a crippled beauty who fled to America because ``to the Japanese, deformity is shameful.'' Crichton's coup is to preach within a breathtakingly supple plot hinging on doctored Nakamoto security videotapes that caught the killer at work, the deciphering of which takes place in lab-set scenes as technologically riveting as the best in Jurassic Park. And as suspenseful--for as Smith closes in on the killer and the huge-money stakes behind the crime, Nakamoto agents threaten his family, his career, and his life. Brilliantly calculated Japan-bashing that's bound, for better or for worse, to attract controversy and a huge readership. (Book- of-the-Month Dual Selection for Spring) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

A new twist for Crichton
I am not a Crichton fan but for some reason always wind up reading his latest book. There is always at least something of interest there. So I was very pleasantly surprised with Rising Sun, a book that takes an unexpected turn for Crichton in that it is light on the science and heavy on character and plot. A murder mystery entangled in the complexities of Japanese business dealings in America, it provides Crichton with an opportunity - through several of his characters - to vent about Japanese culture and the problems American business has competing with them.

The book works on several levels. It is an exciting mystery, an interesting exposition about Japanese business and culture and - as always with Crichton - a lesson in new technology. Whether the insights one gleans about the Japanese are true or not (and that was a controversial aspect of the book when first published) the image of them presented in the book is perfect to create the tension and intrigue that helps keep the plot ticking and holds the reader's interest till the end.

Entertaining
There are lots of detail to flesh out the events and plenty of Crichton's interesting insights on Japanese-American business relations and Japanese vs. American society. If you like to read books with details that spur you on to check it out for yourself this is a buy for you. (Crichton has a selection of other books in the end to help you follow up).

I've read this book twice, once several years ago and again last night. Bottom line: no matter the controversy or the debate about this book to me it's still a good techno-thriller/suspense read. Sure it'll fail as a textbook but as fiction it's great.

For those who are truly interested in the themes presented in the "Rising Sun" pick up "Bushido" by Inazo Nitobe and the "Book of Five Rings" by Miyamoto Musashi. Shameless plug here as both are available here at Amazon. :) They are hard to find in regular, walk-in bookstores here in the States. I bought my copies in Japan (Kinokuniya's in the Kanto area seems to have plenty of them) so if you're not heading there any time soon start clicking.

Also, if you haven't seen the movie version it's quite entertaining as well if you end up liking this book.

Just remember, don't ride the high horse while reading the book, just take an easy stride, relax, and enjoy.

engaging, but soggy and dated
Crichton departs from his usual formula in "Rising Sun", and the changes are not good ones. Instead of casting his big-plan-gone-wrong plot in some arena of science - scientific history, scientific future, medicine, technology - he chooses politics. Perhaps the story worked when it was first written, but ten years later it comes off as reactionary and outdated.

Worse, instead of focusing on the nuts-and-bolts action of his story, Crichton makes a foray into more emotional territory with a first-person narrative that includes multiple love interests and parenting issues. He fails, however, to make his character either a believable man or a believable Crichton hero.

But the book is not a failure: Crichton does still succeed at what he's always been best at. "Rising Sun" is an entertaining, quick read with plenty of twists and turns. For readers seeking only a quick thrill, the book offers more than enough.