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Mr. Moto #1
Your Turn, Mr. Moto
A down-on-his luck American airman...a beautiful international adventuress...a mysterious Chinese courier...a scrap of paper worth many lives and the peace of the entire world...and a jigsaw pattern of treachery and sudden death that had been expertly designed to deceive and destroy. Enter the inimitable Mr. Moto, the only one who could hope to decipher and defuse the situation. Casey Lee, the airman, would never forget this extraordinary figure and the amazing feats he was capable of.
281 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1935
62 people are currently reading
267 people want to read
About the author
John P. Marquand
92 books60 followersPulitzer Prize for Novel in 1938 for The Late George Apley
John Phillips Marquand (November 10, 1893 – July 16, 1960) was an American writer. Originally best known for his Mr. Moto spy stories, he achieved popular success and critical respect for his satirical novels, winning a Pulitzer Prize for The Late George Apley in 1938. One of his abiding themes was the confining nature of life in America's upper class and among those who aspired to join it. Marquand treated those whose lives were bound by these unwritten codes with a characteristic mix of respect and satire.
By the mid-1930s he was a prolific and successful writer of fiction for slick magazines like the Saturday Evening Post. Some of these short stories were of an historical nature as had been Marquand's first two novels (The Unspeakable Gentleman and The Black Cargo). These would later be characterized by Marquand as “costume fiction”, of which he stated that an author “can only approximate (his characters) provided he has been steeped in the (relevant) tradition”. Marquand had abandoned “costume fiction” by the mid-1930s.
In the late-1930s, Marquand began producing a series of novels on the dilemmas of class, most centered on New England. The first of these, The Late George Apley (1937), a satire of Boston's upper class, won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1938. Other Marquand novels exploring New England and class themes include Wickford Point (1939), H.M. Pulham, Esquire (1941), and Point of No Return (1949). The last is especially notable for its satirical portrayal of Harvard anthropologist W. Lloyd Warner, whose Yankee City study attempted (and in Marquand's view, dismally failed) to describe and analyze the manners and mores of Marquand's Newburyport
John Phillips Marquand (November 10, 1893 – July 16, 1960) was an American writer. Originally best known for his Mr. Moto spy stories, he achieved popular success and critical respect for his satirical novels, winning a Pulitzer Prize for The Late George Apley in 1938. One of his abiding themes was the confining nature of life in America's upper class and among those who aspired to join it. Marquand treated those whose lives were bound by these unwritten codes with a characteristic mix of respect and satire.
By the mid-1930s he was a prolific and successful writer of fiction for slick magazines like the Saturday Evening Post. Some of these short stories were of an historical nature as had been Marquand's first two novels (The Unspeakable Gentleman and The Black Cargo). These would later be characterized by Marquand as “costume fiction”, of which he stated that an author “can only approximate (his characters) provided he has been steeped in the (relevant) tradition”. Marquand had abandoned “costume fiction” by the mid-1930s.
In the late-1930s, Marquand began producing a series of novels on the dilemmas of class, most centered on New England. The first of these, The Late George Apley (1937), a satire of Boston's upper class, won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1938. Other Marquand novels exploring New England and class themes include Wickford Point (1939), H.M. Pulham, Esquire (1941), and Point of No Return (1949). The last is especially notable for its satirical portrayal of Harvard anthropologist W. Lloyd Warner, whose Yankee City study attempted (and in Marquand's view, dismally failed) to describe and analyze the manners and mores of Marquand's Newburyport
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
May 23, 2018
I was prepared to hate this, or at least think that a book written in 1935 set in The Orient featuring a nefarious Japanese, seductive White Russian femme fatale, brave all-American airman and an inscrutable Chinese couldn't possibly be read today without holding your nose as a lot of racist assumptions presumably prevalent in a less enlightened age went unchallenged on the page, or at least between the lines...
But in fact, the characters were far less black and white than I thought they would have been, and if anything, the American protagonist comes across as the least intelligent, or interesting of the cast. And while Mr Moto plays the role of villain, he's not all bad (just as the hero is not all good) and we are left with grudging respect for all the characters and an interesting, vivid picture of East Asian concerns from a contemporary American's port hole.
Not necessarily the most cerebral or thrilling of books, but I'm intrigued enough to want to learn of what Marquand does with Mr Moto in later outings. I listened to this as an audiobook, and narrator Paul Christy was excellent, by the way. There are worse ways to entertain yourself walking to your next English lesson in Japan...
Download my starter library for free here - http://eepurl.com/bFkt0X - and receive my monthly newsletter with book recommendations galore for the Japanophile/crime fiction/English teacher in all of us.
But in fact, the characters were far less black and white than I thought they would have been, and if anything, the American protagonist comes across as the least intelligent, or interesting of the cast. And while Mr Moto plays the role of villain, he's not all bad (just as the hero is not all good) and we are left with grudging respect for all the characters and an interesting, vivid picture of East Asian concerns from a contemporary American's port hole.
Not necessarily the most cerebral or thrilling of books, but I'm intrigued enough to want to learn of what Marquand does with Mr Moto in later outings. I listened to this as an audiobook, and narrator Paul Christy was excellent, by the way. There are worse ways to entertain yourself walking to your next English lesson in Japan...
Download my starter library for free here - http://eepurl.com/bFkt0X - and receive my monthly newsletter with book recommendations galore for the Japanophile/crime fiction/English teacher in all of us.
May 4, 2012
Your Turn, Mr Moto, published in 1936, was the first of John P. Marquand’s Mr Moto novels. Mr Moto is better remembered today from the film series with Peter Lorre as the Japanese master detective.
I’ve only seen one of the Mr Moto films and it’s an engaging mixture of crime and espionage. The Mr Moto of Your Turn, Mr Moto is a rather different character. He’s a spymaster rather than a detective and he’s the bad guy instead of being the hero. He’s also a supporting character, not the central character. Oddly enough that was the way Charlie Chan was also introduced in the first of Earl Derr Biggers’ Charlie Chan novels. In both cases the subsidiary character ended up being the highlight of the book and was so popular with readers that he went on to become the central character in further adventures.
The hero in Your Turn, Mr Moto is Casey Lee, a washed-up alcoholic American flyer stranded in Tokyo when plans for a trans-Pacific flight fall through. He’d hoped the flight would resurrect him as a national hero (he’d been an air ace in the First World War and a noted pioneer aviator in the 20s). Now he’s so embittered that when Japanese spymaster Mr Moto offers him a job he accepts it even though it means betraying his country.
Being a Japanese spy turns out not to be much fun. People keep trying to kill him. On a ship to Shanghai they become convinced he has gained possession of a secret formula that would allow oil fuel to be burnt so efficiently that it would double the cruising ranges of both warships and aircraft, giving whichever country possessed the secret an enormous strategic advantage.
Casey has other problems. He has fallen in love with a glamorous White Russian spy named Sonya. She may be working for one of the major powers, or for the White Russians still hoping to overthrow the Bolsheviks, or for herself. Casey has no idea where her loyalties lie but he’s crazy about her. He’s also having second thoughts about the whole betraying your country thing, plus he’s caught up in a struggle between American, Chinese and Japanese intelligence agencies. The most dangerous person in this game appears to be Mr Moto, an urbane and sophisticated man who deplores unnecessary violence but has a steely determination to get the secret formula for Japan. His courteous and charming exterior hides a razor-sharp mind. While Mr Moto deplores violence he understands the regrettable necessity for it at times.
All Casey Lee understands is that he needs a drink. He’s a flawed and reluctant hero but a hero nonetheless. He muddles through as best as he can.
One thing I get annoyed by these days is people who enjoy this sort of fiction but always feel the need to apologise for the politically incorrect nature of such books. We live in an arrogant age that often forgets that the people of the past were as complex and as intelligent (and sometimes as stupid) as we are. When we assume that the people of the past were all mindless bigots we’re guilty of stereotyping past generations in the same way they get accused of stereotyping other races.
Your Turn, Mr Moto displays a complicated set of attitudes towards the Orient. Of course we’re not even supposed to use that word any more because it conjures up a mood of exoticism, adventure and mystery and we live in an age that has no time for such things. Casey Lee has to struggle to understand the mysterious workings of the Japanese mind, and Mr Moto has to struggle just as hard to understand the equally mysterious workings of the American mind.
Mr Moto might appear to be the bad guy but he’s no villain. Insofar as a spymaster can be an honourable man Mr Moto is an honourable man. He serves his country with intelligence, bravery and education. Casey Lee discovers, much to his own surprise, that he is a patriot as well. Neither of them displays any xenophobic feelings. They respect each other’s abilities (Mr Moto at first underestimates Casey but he soon discovers his error which only increases his respect for the American). On a personal level they like one another.
That’s really the point of the book. Espionage requires deception but it’s not necessarily good guys vs bad guys. Sometimes it’s good guys vs good guys who just happen to be on opposite sides.
This is a very decent espionage thriller. Recommended, especially if you like your spy fiction in exotic locations.
I’ve only seen one of the Mr Moto films and it’s an engaging mixture of crime and espionage. The Mr Moto of Your Turn, Mr Moto is a rather different character. He’s a spymaster rather than a detective and he’s the bad guy instead of being the hero. He’s also a supporting character, not the central character. Oddly enough that was the way Charlie Chan was also introduced in the first of Earl Derr Biggers’ Charlie Chan novels. In both cases the subsidiary character ended up being the highlight of the book and was so popular with readers that he went on to become the central character in further adventures.
The hero in Your Turn, Mr Moto is Casey Lee, a washed-up alcoholic American flyer stranded in Tokyo when plans for a trans-Pacific flight fall through. He’d hoped the flight would resurrect him as a national hero (he’d been an air ace in the First World War and a noted pioneer aviator in the 20s). Now he’s so embittered that when Japanese spymaster Mr Moto offers him a job he accepts it even though it means betraying his country.
Being a Japanese spy turns out not to be much fun. People keep trying to kill him. On a ship to Shanghai they become convinced he has gained possession of a secret formula that would allow oil fuel to be burnt so efficiently that it would double the cruising ranges of both warships and aircraft, giving whichever country possessed the secret an enormous strategic advantage.
Casey has other problems. He has fallen in love with a glamorous White Russian spy named Sonya. She may be working for one of the major powers, or for the White Russians still hoping to overthrow the Bolsheviks, or for herself. Casey has no idea where her loyalties lie but he’s crazy about her. He’s also having second thoughts about the whole betraying your country thing, plus he’s caught up in a struggle between American, Chinese and Japanese intelligence agencies. The most dangerous person in this game appears to be Mr Moto, an urbane and sophisticated man who deplores unnecessary violence but has a steely determination to get the secret formula for Japan. His courteous and charming exterior hides a razor-sharp mind. While Mr Moto deplores violence he understands the regrettable necessity for it at times.
All Casey Lee understands is that he needs a drink. He’s a flawed and reluctant hero but a hero nonetheless. He muddles through as best as he can.
One thing I get annoyed by these days is people who enjoy this sort of fiction but always feel the need to apologise for the politically incorrect nature of such books. We live in an arrogant age that often forgets that the people of the past were as complex and as intelligent (and sometimes as stupid) as we are. When we assume that the people of the past were all mindless bigots we’re guilty of stereotyping past generations in the same way they get accused of stereotyping other races.
Your Turn, Mr Moto displays a complicated set of attitudes towards the Orient. Of course we’re not even supposed to use that word any more because it conjures up a mood of exoticism, adventure and mystery and we live in an age that has no time for such things. Casey Lee has to struggle to understand the mysterious workings of the Japanese mind, and Mr Moto has to struggle just as hard to understand the equally mysterious workings of the American mind.
Mr Moto might appear to be the bad guy but he’s no villain. Insofar as a spymaster can be an honourable man Mr Moto is an honourable man. He serves his country with intelligence, bravery and education. Casey Lee discovers, much to his own surprise, that he is a patriot as well. Neither of them displays any xenophobic feelings. They respect each other’s abilities (Mr Moto at first underestimates Casey but he soon discovers his error which only increases his respect for the American). On a personal level they like one another.
That’s really the point of the book. Espionage requires deception but it’s not necessarily good guys vs bad guys. Sometimes it’s good guys vs good guys who just happen to be on opposite sides.
This is a very decent espionage thriller. Recommended, especially if you like your spy fiction in exotic locations.
February 18, 2017
There is Mr. Moto who like Charlie Chan was always great fun watching in those B/W movies at Saturday afternoons in my youth. However when you think of Peter Lorre's version of Mr Moto you were left with the idea that he was more pro-USA and more a detective.
This first Book is far more about a drunken has been pilot Casey Lee who got grounded in Japan and has no means or friends to get away when a saviour shows up in the Form of a Russian Femme Fatale and a small well dressed and well spoken Mr Moto who actually recruits the American to do a little job for him. On a boattrip to Shanghai in China all goes wrong and Casey Lee finds himself running and swimming for his life.
A rather nice and sometimes hard to follow Spy novel placed in the Orient where Mr Moto is far more a spy master in the background than a detective. At the end of this well rounded off spy adventure novel you cannot feel anything but wary of this Japanese gentleman who has a very different agenda than the movies ever did show.
However the descriptions of the period pre WWII in the orient are well written and not without charm and give a fairly good idea of that time and place in history. A nice little adventure spy novel to pass the time if you enjoy this period of time when the world seemed way easier and spycraft was about people and not drones & computers.
Enjoyable read for me.
This first Book is far more about a drunken has been pilot Casey Lee who got grounded in Japan and has no means or friends to get away when a saviour shows up in the Form of a Russian Femme Fatale and a small well dressed and well spoken Mr Moto who actually recruits the American to do a little job for him. On a boattrip to Shanghai in China all goes wrong and Casey Lee finds himself running and swimming for his life.
A rather nice and sometimes hard to follow Spy novel placed in the Orient where Mr Moto is far more a spy master in the background than a detective. At the end of this well rounded off spy adventure novel you cannot feel anything but wary of this Japanese gentleman who has a very different agenda than the movies ever did show.
However the descriptions of the period pre WWII in the orient are well written and not without charm and give a fairly good idea of that time and place in history. A nice little adventure spy novel to pass the time if you enjoy this period of time when the world seemed way easier and spycraft was about people and not drones & computers.
Enjoyable read for me.
August 5, 2017
Your Turn, Mr. Moto (1935) is the first story in John P. Marquand's mystery thriller series starring Japan's number one secret agent, Mr. Moto. The only thing...it's not really Mr. Moto's story. Yes, he is a vital character, but the real protagonist of this early spy thriller is World War I flying ace Casey Lee. At the beginning of the story, Lee is a bit disenchanted with rhis American homeland. When he first came home from the war, he was feted and paraded and generally fawned over. But when the crowds of grateful Americans longing to hear his tales of bravery in the face of the enemy dwindled, he found that he missed the life of danger and adrenaline which accompanies combat. He then spent time as a stunt flyer and giving testimonials for various products. Which brings us to Tokyo, Japan.
A large tobacco firm offered him the chance to make a flight from Tokyo to the United States with plane and expenses provided. But the longer Lee waited for the the plane to arrive and the publicity machine to get rolling, the more he spent on drink and the louder he proclaimed his disgust for the good ol' U S of A. One night he gets word that the tobacco company has changed its mind about the flight and plans to offer him passage home and nothing else. He gets himself particularly well-lubricated, makes a bigger spectacle of himself than usual, and wakes up to find Mr. Moto attentively waiting up on him in his room. Moto asks him if he truly meant his declarations of the night before--when he declared he was through with America and tore up his passport.
Before Casey knows it, he has pledged himself to Moto's service and gotten himself involved with a beautiful White Russian refugee. They're all after top secret plans that Moto is afraid have fallen into the wrong hands. He, the Russian Sonya, and Moto set sail on a ship bound for Shanghai. Once there, Casey is meant to mix with his countrymen and see if he can discover whether the Americans have the plans. But getting to Shanghai will be a difficult task all on its own. A mysterious man comes into his cabin at night with strange messages. Then the mysterious man is killed. Everyone assumes that Casey has been given the plans and there are those who are willing to kill him for the information. It doesn't help that Casey falls in love with Sonya...even though he's not sure that he can trust her. He'll have to decide soon. Because his own fate and the fate of several nations' naval forces may depend on it.
This is a fairly entertaining spy novel that gives a very good sense of East Asia during the years between the world wars and it provides a fairly complicated look at the Japanese of the time period. Mr. Moto is a spymaster and, in some ways, a bad guy--but he is no stereotypical Fu Manchu and he is a very honorable man. When faced with the resolution which Casey provides, he accepts it and honors his bargain with the American. Were he the typical Asian villain from the time period, he would be threatening all sorts of revenge at being thwarted.
Casey changes from the dissolute man of the opening chapters to the brave hero of World War I fame. He finds the answers to Mr. Moto's dilemma, fashions his own solution to what to do about the plans, foils a villain more dangerous than Moto....and manages to get the girl in the end. A pretty satisfactory bit of light espionage entertainment.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
A large tobacco firm offered him the chance to make a flight from Tokyo to the United States with plane and expenses provided. But the longer Lee waited for the the plane to arrive and the publicity machine to get rolling, the more he spent on drink and the louder he proclaimed his disgust for the good ol' U S of A. One night he gets word that the tobacco company has changed its mind about the flight and plans to offer him passage home and nothing else. He gets himself particularly well-lubricated, makes a bigger spectacle of himself than usual, and wakes up to find Mr. Moto attentively waiting up on him in his room. Moto asks him if he truly meant his declarations of the night before--when he declared he was through with America and tore up his passport.
Before Casey knows it, he has pledged himself to Moto's service and gotten himself involved with a beautiful White Russian refugee. They're all after top secret plans that Moto is afraid have fallen into the wrong hands. He, the Russian Sonya, and Moto set sail on a ship bound for Shanghai. Once there, Casey is meant to mix with his countrymen and see if he can discover whether the Americans have the plans. But getting to Shanghai will be a difficult task all on its own. A mysterious man comes into his cabin at night with strange messages. Then the mysterious man is killed. Everyone assumes that Casey has been given the plans and there are those who are willing to kill him for the information. It doesn't help that Casey falls in love with Sonya...even though he's not sure that he can trust her. He'll have to decide soon. Because his own fate and the fate of several nations' naval forces may depend on it.
This is a fairly entertaining spy novel that gives a very good sense of East Asia during the years between the world wars and it provides a fairly complicated look at the Japanese of the time period. Mr. Moto is a spymaster and, in some ways, a bad guy--but he is no stereotypical Fu Manchu and he is a very honorable man. When faced with the resolution which Casey provides, he accepts it and honors his bargain with the American. Were he the typical Asian villain from the time period, he would be threatening all sorts of revenge at being thwarted.
Casey changes from the dissolute man of the opening chapters to the brave hero of World War I fame. He finds the answers to Mr. Moto's dilemma, fashions his own solution to what to do about the plans, foils a villain more dangerous than Moto....and manages to get the girl in the end. A pretty satisfactory bit of light espionage entertainment.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
May 2, 2025
This was fun. It is far from mystery and heavy on spy. K.C. "Casey" Lee is drunk again. A former WWI flying Ace, he is in Tokyo ostensibly to fly a plane across the Pacific and to once again have the public adulation he thinks he deserves. Having been betrayed by his sponsor he turns his back on America. Mr. Moto comes to his rescue. He promises a plane from Shanghai if Casey will do him a favor.
I approached this with some trepidation, wondering if it would be filled with Oriental disparagement. I was relieved there was little of it, though of course the Japanese Mr. Moto is the bad guy. But remember this is a full 6 years before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Frankly, I was surprised there were so many references to the possibility of war.
I think I saw some of the old black and white movies based on Mr. Moto, but it has been many many years. Perhaps I only saw a few scenes here and there. Remembering them, however, is why I picked up a bundle of the first 3 titles in the series. Other titles seemed more interesting, and I studiously ignored Mr. Moto. I'll try to rectify that. This isn't even in the 4-star category - probably more like a very worthy 3-stars. I'll definitely be reading the others in due time, probably slipping one and then the other in between more serious reads.
I approached this with some trepidation, wondering if it would be filled with Oriental disparagement. I was relieved there was little of it, though of course the Japanese Mr. Moto is the bad guy. But remember this is a full 6 years before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Frankly, I was surprised there were so many references to the possibility of war.
I think I saw some of the old black and white movies based on Mr. Moto, but it has been many many years. Perhaps I only saw a few scenes here and there. Remembering them, however, is why I picked up a bundle of the first 3 titles in the series. Other titles seemed more interesting, and I studiously ignored Mr. Moto. I'll try to rectify that. This isn't even in the 4-star category - probably more like a very worthy 3-stars. I'll definitely be reading the others in due time, probably slipping one and then the other in between more serious reads.
March 19, 2012
Originally published as No Hero. Written in 1935, this thriller deals with an American airman in Japan who is unwillingly roped into a race to secure an invention than can double oil power. Mr. Moto, the spy of the title, is a small, constantly polite, unexpectedly dangerous man who sends the washed-up airman, Casey Lee, on his quest.
The story is written by a narrator who apologizes for its fanciful nature, but the modern reader, perhaps dulled by ever more convoluted espionage plots with superhuman heroes, probably will find nothing hard to believe here. I enjoyed it a lot; Marquand’s descriptions of the East through Western eyes are fantastic, and the drama is suitably tense. Mr. Moto, of course, steals the show with his obsessive politeness and steel-trap mind; he’s not at all a hero or even an ally, but he’s a likeable spy who works for the interests of his country but doesn’t make it personal. It’s easy to see why Marquand wrote another Moto book and not another Casey Lee adventure.
The story is written by a narrator who apologizes for its fanciful nature, but the modern reader, perhaps dulled by ever more convoluted espionage plots with superhuman heroes, probably will find nothing hard to believe here. I enjoyed it a lot; Marquand’s descriptions of the East through Western eyes are fantastic, and the drama is suitably tense. Mr. Moto, of course, steals the show with his obsessive politeness and steel-trap mind; he’s not at all a hero or even an ally, but he’s a likeable spy who works for the interests of his country but doesn’t make it personal. It’s easy to see why Marquand wrote another Moto book and not another Casey Lee adventure.
April 27, 2024
ENGLISH: Spy novel with a small dose of love and many adventures, changes of pace and double-crossings. The discussions about a possible war between Japan and the United States are curious, knowing as we know what happened six years later.
ESPAÑOL: Novela de espionaje con una pequeña dosis de amor y muchas aventuras, cambios de ritmo y perfidias. Son curiosas las disquisiciones sobre una posible guerra entre Japón y los Estados Unidos, sabiendo como sabemos lo que ocurrió seis años más tarde.
ESPAÑOL: Novela de espionaje con una pequeña dosis de amor y muchas aventuras, cambios de ritmo y perfidias. Son curiosas las disquisiciones sobre una posible guerra entre Japón y los Estados Unidos, sabiendo como sabemos lo que ocurrió seis años más tarde.
November 12, 2020
Allthough Marquand writes well enough, and builds suspense, this novel is either a spy story, or a romance, and neither is of special intensity. At the end, Moto is either one dimensional, or of inscrutable chicanery.
April 22, 2018
A delightful 1930’s spy adventure book that takes place in the Orient. I was surprised that the narrator and main character is an American pilot Mr. Casey Lee, not Mr. Moto of motion picture fame. Mr. Moto is one of many characters in the book seeking a lost message which may have been secretly passed to our narrator. The author’s writing style is similar to other authors of his time - very fluid and heavily descriptive. This book is definitely worth a lazy afternoon or two while you imagine what it would be like to be in a plane over Asia.....
May 24, 2018
Sometimes when a literary author goes slumming, s/he writes very engaging books. The typical Marquand protagonist is a middle-aged man who is dissatisfied with life. His attempt to find satisfaction is the story. When Earl Derr Biggers died and could write no more Charlie Chan serials for Colliers, the magazine sent an alert to authors saying they would like another Asian detective. Marquand answered the call, but not in the expected way. Mr. Moto of the Japanese secret service is no detective, but a spy working in the interests of his government, which are at odds with the interests of the US government. He is a minor character who turns up at crucial moments to get the twists and turns of the plot working against the protagonist, Casey Lee as one of Marquand’s unhappy middle-aged men. The twist is that this man is a pilot, not one of the upper middle-class Northeasterners at the center of so many Marquand novels. I find Marquand’s mainstream novels dull. I don’t care about his protagonists and their rich but sad little lives. I did care about Casey Lee, a man in need of redemption who has a chance for it handed to him by Mr. Moto, he thinks. If he can survive, he will find his redemption via the very different path of working against Mr. Moto. This book works very well as a thriller. It is well paced, many characters are well if briefly drawn, and the story mostly works. It does seem a bit racist at this remove, with smart, proud, arrogant, sinister Orientals plotting against the interests of white nations. Moto himself is something of a cliché, with prominent teeth and a taste for European clothes, but no fashion sense (he wears a golf outfit to arrest Lee and the woman Lee loves). While this is expected in a novel of the era, 1935, it chafes today. Still, an effective thriller that nearly transcends the genre to be a very good novel.
July 22, 2015
Angered by being abandoned by the company supporting his flight from Japan to California, Casey Lee agrees to do whatever the mysterious Mr Moto orders him to do – it seems Moto is after secret plans that will double battleships and destroyers cruising range, but with the murder of a man in Casey’s stateroom and his own life in danger, Casey decides to escape the ship he is on with Mr Moto and see a mysterious Chinese man.
Along the way, he meets a gorgeous Russian agent who may have her own agenda, and as the suspense and action grows, both of their lives hang in the balance.
Here is an action and suspense packed thriller by Pulitzer Prize winner, John P Marquand – well written and intriguing since it is set in those pre-World War days when it was becoming all too clear that there might be a war between Japan and the USA – a not to be missed tension filled thriller that kicked off one of the most popular thriller series of its time.
Along the way, he meets a gorgeous Russian agent who may have her own agenda, and as the suspense and action grows, both of their lives hang in the balance.
Here is an action and suspense packed thriller by Pulitzer Prize winner, John P Marquand – well written and intriguing since it is set in those pre-World War days when it was becoming all too clear that there might be a war between Japan and the USA – a not to be missed tension filled thriller that kicked off one of the most popular thriller series of its time.
July 23, 2015
Your Turn, Mr. Moto by John P. Marquand- (Originally "No Hero" 1937). This is the first in a series of spy adventures in the orient by Marquand, a Pulitzer winning author. The setting is mostly Japan in the thirties before World War Two, so the style and descriptions match that period. Mr. Moto is not the main character in this or any of the books, but rather appears from time to time to move the plot along and raise the stakes. In this outing, our protagonist is Casey Lee, pilot extraordinaire, who has had a run of bad luck and finds himself in Japan with dismal prospects and few options. It's a standard spy story with the added feature of Marquand's informed understanding of the orient and his elegant writing to raise the plot beyond its pulp beginnings. I don't know if Open Road is planning to resurrect the entire series, but for those who like their spy fiction more literary and with less gadgetry, this is a refreshing turn.
September 7, 2015
Marquand is a terrific writer. This is the first of the Mr. Moto series, and assuming this one is typical of the others, these are more tours de force for him. I found this a lot of fun, if unsubstantial.
To me the book started in a leisurely way with some nice writing, and gradually morphed into a hard-boiled spy novel. It reads like a black-and-white motion picture (as they used to be called). My only complaint is that the plot is set up meticulously as the book rolls along but around two-thirds of the way through this short novel, it rushes to the finish.
There is no real characterization, just cardboard cutouts, but there is a lot of a sense of world affairs from a US perspective between the two world wars. I enjoyed this, and will read more of the series.
To me the book started in a leisurely way with some nice writing, and gradually morphed into a hard-boiled spy novel. It reads like a black-and-white motion picture (as they used to be called). My only complaint is that the plot is set up meticulously as the book rolls along but around two-thirds of the way through this short novel, it rushes to the finish.
There is no real characterization, just cardboard cutouts, but there is a lot of a sense of world affairs from a US perspective between the two world wars. I enjoyed this, and will read more of the series.
August 27, 2024
Your Turn, Mr. Moto was originally entitled No Hero, which is a better and more accurate title. This is a spy thriller with a little romance mixed in with the secret agents. No mystery, no good guys or bad guys -- just everyone out for their own interests. The main character is a lush of an apolitical aviator who's looking to fly a plane across the Pacific, but gets caught up in the prewar jitters between Japan, China, Russia, and the U.S. Entertaining and compelling but slight when it's all over. Seems like a more accessible version of Graham Greene (who had published three novels before 1935) and who, as with Marquand, also had his more and less serious fictions. Was initially apprehensive that it would be racist but not so. In fact, the book seemed enlightened in that Marquand presented the characters as each following their own ethnic interests, without a partisan bias. Mr. Moto isn't the main character, but perhaps the most interesting and the most decent. The novel is fascinating for its insights into Japan and China in the decade before WWII, as we're now just 17 years from the centenary of Pearl Harbor. I found nothing to indicate that Marquand had ever visited Asia so it may not be a "you were there" story. [3★]
June 27, 2024
I have been dancing around reading the Mr. Moto series for a while and finally have dived in with the first book. It’s an espionage/thriller story with a lot of questions in which some get answered and many won’t be. (A situation akin to - if I tell you then I’ll have to kill you.)
Since the narrator is the main person, you know he lives. Which even while reading I wasn’t too sure if he would make it. It’s a particularly tight plot where you get a good idea of who the players will be. It’s after WW1 and 2 is looming as the world stage is mighty unstable.
I liked the main character more as the story went on and he seemed to find his way (after he himself was a war hero and then was returned to civilian life that didn’t really embrace him upon return.) So while there was a lot of who’s trying to manipulate who story, it was also a story of a man who needed to actually find a way to live his life.
It’s a quick read and well written. Lots of action. And you get a feel for time and place of the world at this time. I do like Mr. Moto- he is enigmatic but in this, he also seems like he too could be feeling similar things as the narrator.
PS- I also liked the introduction.
Since the narrator is the main person, you know he lives. Which even while reading I wasn’t too sure if he would make it. It’s a particularly tight plot where you get a good idea of who the players will be. It’s after WW1 and 2 is looming as the world stage is mighty unstable.
I liked the main character more as the story went on and he seemed to find his way (after he himself was a war hero and then was returned to civilian life that didn’t really embrace him upon return.) So while there was a lot of who’s trying to manipulate who story, it was also a story of a man who needed to actually find a way to live his life.
It’s a quick read and well written. Lots of action. And you get a feel for time and place of the world at this time. I do like Mr. Moto- he is enigmatic but in this, he also seems like he too could be feeling similar things as the narrator.
PS- I also liked the introduction.
June 1, 2022
Loved the story. The very beginning is a bit depressing, but it is of short duration. Can't wait to get the other books of this series!
December 28, 2018
review of
John P. Marquand's Your Turn, Mr. Moto
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 27, 2018
Almost 5 yrs ago now, I made a movie called "CHAN(geling)" ( https://youtu.be/XMP8mU1OfSY ) that was meant "basically as a critique of yellowface as a symptom of anti-Asian sentiment in Hollywood in the beginning of the 20th century" (to quote from the YouTube notes). Making this movie involved rewatching (& picking scenes from) a slew of Charlie Chan movies, mostly ones starring Warner Oland. As a side-effect of this, I checked out the Mr. Moto movies too:
"Think Fast, Mr. Moto" (1937)
"Thank You, Mr. Moto" (1937)
"Mr. Moto's Gamble" (1938)
"Mr. Moto Takes a Chance" (1938)
"Mysterious Mr. Moto" (1938)
"Mr. Moto's Last Warning" (1939)
"Mr. Moto in Danger Island" (1939)
"Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation" (1939)
All of these starred Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto. Lorre played maniacs & gangsters more often than not but I vaguely remember his Mr. Moto being portrayed sympathetically. The last of the Mr. Moto movies starring Lorre was in 1939. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Hence, it's no wonder that there weren't any more Mr. Moto movies until one last one called "The Return of Mr. Moto" (1965). In it, Henry Silva starring instead of Lorre, Moto is living in Hawaii & pitted against an ex-nazi. This sort of thing fascinates me given that the Mr. Moto movies wd've been Hollywood attempts to portray a Japanese character as intelligent & decent — but used an actor associated w/ maniac & killer roles — maybe Hollywood was hedging its bets. All this happened before Japanese Americans became 'suspects' as enemies of the US after Pearl Harbor.
"The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in concentration camps in the western interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom lived on the Pacific coast. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens. These actions were ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
"Japanese Americans were incarcerated based on local population concentrations and regional politics. More than 110,000 Japanese Americans in the mainland U.S., who mostly lived on the West Coast, were forced into interior camps. However, in Hawaii, where 150,000-plus Japanese Americans composed over one-third of the population, only 1,200 to 1,800 were also interned. The internment is considered to have resulted more from racism than from any security risk posed by Japanese Americans. Those who were as little as 1/16 Japanese and orphaned infants with "one drop of Japanese blood" were placed in internment camps.
"Roosevelt authorized the deportation and incarceration with Executive Order 9066, issued on February 19, 1942, which allowed regional military commanders to designate "military areas" from which "any or all persons may be excluded." This authority was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the West Coast, including all of California and parts of Oregon, Washington, and Arizona, except for those in government camps. Approximately 5,000 Japanese Americans relocated outside the exclusion zone before March 1942, while some 5,500 community leaders had been arrested immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack and thus were already in custody. The majority of nearly 130,000 Japanese Americans living in the U.S. mainland were forcibly relocated from their West Coast homes during the spring of 1942."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internm...
SO, in the spirit of continuing research into the popular perception of Asians, in general, & Japanese, in particular, in this era, I decided to read a Mr. Moto novel. This one, Your Turn, Mr. Moto, was the 1st (1935). The bks must've been fairly popular to be turned into movies so quickly. Given the publication date, it's interesting that Marquand has his American character say that:
"the Japanese are capable people, sensitive and intelligent. Still, although it sometimes seems incredible that our two nations should ever go to war, there is always the thought of war behind the scenes in every nation." - p 7
It's as if Marquand is anticipating war & arguing against it.
The main character, "Casey" Lee, is a decorated American war hero pilot in Japan on business. His career as a glamorous pilot is on the skids & he's become an alcoholic. He gives a press conference.
"["]I'm going to be a goodwill ambassador between Japan and the United States. But I don't care so long as I have a crate to fly. The good old American game of nonsense doesn't bother me."
""You needn't yell about it so," a voice objected. "You're an American, aren't you?"
""That is where I was born," I answered, "but I'm broadminded enough to have my own ideas. I've fought for the Spaniards and the Poles. There are other nations besides the United States—in case you don't know—several others."
""All right, Lee," said someone, "but here you are in a public place. Keep your voice down. A lot of these Japanese are looking at you."
""Let 'em look," I said. "Why should I care if they look? And I'll say anything I damn well please any time at all."" - pp 12-13
Lee goes drunkenely off the deep end, damaging his public image, & is helped back to his room by Mr. Moto, a Japanese detective or espionage expert, who Lee doesn't know. The next day, his advertising flight is cancelled. Soon thereafter, he meets a Russian woman, a spy, named Sonya. I often think of WWII as starting w/ the Japanese invasion of Manchuria — rather than w/ the slightly later nazi invasions. Lee talks w/ Sonya sympathetically about the Japanese there:
""Well, no one objected when your Tsar controlled Manchuria; why should we object when Japan does? It's against the laws of fact to keep eighty million Japanese on a few small islands. If Japan is strong enough to run it, why shouldn't she run Manchuria?"" - p 37
It doesn't take him long to have suspicions about Sonya's motives. Nonetheless, he's strongly attracted to her:
"I did not answer. Whether it was true or not, I was pleased that she liked me, but I still had sense enough to know what she was by then. The ring had told me. It revealed, among other things, that I had never asked her to lunch and that she was a Japanese spy. Not that the idea shocked me. Instead it pleased me. She was a Japanese spy and I was no one—footloose and entirely on my own, being speeded through Tokio in a limousine." - p 41
Lee's sensitivity to Japan's international position continues to be spelled out. Keep in mind that the bk was written a decade before the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
"I could understand Japan's sesnitiveness to any enemy threat from the air. A sight of those unpainted matchboxes of dwellings, with hardly air space between them—and our motor moved through street after street—explained why Japan watched with unconcealed misgivings the contruction of our airplane carriers and the development of Chinese and Russian aviation. A few incendiary bombs were all that would be needed to bring about unimaginable disaster" - pp 43-44
""Think of it this way," she said; "think of a great country which is always moving forward—taking. The United States is moving toward Asia— her hand has reached out over Hawaii, over Guam, over the Philippines. Where is she going to stop?"" - p 51
""He looks to the east and seems to see the gray wall of the American battle fleet. He looks to the west and seems to see the Russian army and the Russian air force. And China. Mongolia is full of agents["]" - p 53
Lee gets sucked into working for Mr. Moto, who's well-mannered but not completely a sympathetic character b/c there's ruthlessness in his profession. While involved, Lee realizes that he still holds loyalty to the US, regardless of his conflicting feelings:
"Men died for their faith who have never been inside a church, and men die for their country, although they may have spent their lives criticizing all its works. The amazing thing about it is that they are probably surprised by their irrational willingness to die." - p 66
Are we then just insects in a hive?
Trapped onboard a ship, Lee finds himself at Mr. Moto's mercy:
""I am so sorry," Mr. Moto said again, "but you must submit to have them search you. Please."
"A single glance at the stewarts and at Mr. Moto convinced me that any further argument was useless, for the men all had an air of complete efficiency written on them which displayed a familiarity with forms of business not usually practiced by steamship employees." - p 118
Lee arrives in China:
"Whenever my mind brings back their faces and rags, an impression of China comes with them which has never been erased. Paradoxically, perhaps, in spite of their stark poverty and evidences of disease and grinding labor, that impression has always been one of peace. It was a peace born of a knowledge of life and of human relationships. I could understand why China had absorbed her conquerors when I watched that ring of faces. Their bland impatience was impervious to any fortune." - p 140
Nonetheless, 14 yrs after this novel was published, the Chinese Communist Revolution started on October 1, 1949. Perhaps that "grinding labor" was a bit too much after all. Did it get better after the revolution? One hopes so.
"I doubt if any city in the world is more amazing than Shanghai, where the culture of the East and West has met to turn curiously into something different than East and West; where the silver and riches of China are hoarded for safety; where opéra-bouffe Oriental millionaires drive their limousines along the Bund; where the interests of Europe meet the Orient and clash in a sparkle of uniforms and jewels; where the practical realities of Western industrialism meet the fatality of the East." - p 162
All in all, I didn't find the writing in Your Turn, Mr. Moto anything to write home about but as an American writer's take on Asia in the 1930s I found it well worth reading.
John P. Marquand's Your Turn, Mr. Moto
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 27, 2018
Almost 5 yrs ago now, I made a movie called "CHAN(geling)" ( https://youtu.be/XMP8mU1OfSY ) that was meant "basically as a critique of yellowface as a symptom of anti-Asian sentiment in Hollywood in the beginning of the 20th century" (to quote from the YouTube notes). Making this movie involved rewatching (& picking scenes from) a slew of Charlie Chan movies, mostly ones starring Warner Oland. As a side-effect of this, I checked out the Mr. Moto movies too:
"Think Fast, Mr. Moto" (1937)
"Thank You, Mr. Moto" (1937)
"Mr. Moto's Gamble" (1938)
"Mr. Moto Takes a Chance" (1938)
"Mysterious Mr. Moto" (1938)
"Mr. Moto's Last Warning" (1939)
"Mr. Moto in Danger Island" (1939)
"Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation" (1939)
All of these starred Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto. Lorre played maniacs & gangsters more often than not but I vaguely remember his Mr. Moto being portrayed sympathetically. The last of the Mr. Moto movies starring Lorre was in 1939. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Hence, it's no wonder that there weren't any more Mr. Moto movies until one last one called "The Return of Mr. Moto" (1965). In it, Henry Silva starring instead of Lorre, Moto is living in Hawaii & pitted against an ex-nazi. This sort of thing fascinates me given that the Mr. Moto movies wd've been Hollywood attempts to portray a Japanese character as intelligent & decent — but used an actor associated w/ maniac & killer roles — maybe Hollywood was hedging its bets. All this happened before Japanese Americans became 'suspects' as enemies of the US after Pearl Harbor.
"The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in concentration camps in the western interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom lived on the Pacific coast. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens. These actions were ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
"Japanese Americans were incarcerated based on local population concentrations and regional politics. More than 110,000 Japanese Americans in the mainland U.S., who mostly lived on the West Coast, were forced into interior camps. However, in Hawaii, where 150,000-plus Japanese Americans composed over one-third of the population, only 1,200 to 1,800 were also interned. The internment is considered to have resulted more from racism than from any security risk posed by Japanese Americans. Those who were as little as 1/16 Japanese and orphaned infants with "one drop of Japanese blood" were placed in internment camps.
"Roosevelt authorized the deportation and incarceration with Executive Order 9066, issued on February 19, 1942, which allowed regional military commanders to designate "military areas" from which "any or all persons may be excluded." This authority was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the West Coast, including all of California and parts of Oregon, Washington, and Arizona, except for those in government camps. Approximately 5,000 Japanese Americans relocated outside the exclusion zone before March 1942, while some 5,500 community leaders had been arrested immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack and thus were already in custody. The majority of nearly 130,000 Japanese Americans living in the U.S. mainland were forcibly relocated from their West Coast homes during the spring of 1942."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internm...
SO, in the spirit of continuing research into the popular perception of Asians, in general, & Japanese, in particular, in this era, I decided to read a Mr. Moto novel. This one, Your Turn, Mr. Moto, was the 1st (1935). The bks must've been fairly popular to be turned into movies so quickly. Given the publication date, it's interesting that Marquand has his American character say that:
"the Japanese are capable people, sensitive and intelligent. Still, although it sometimes seems incredible that our two nations should ever go to war, there is always the thought of war behind the scenes in every nation." - p 7
It's as if Marquand is anticipating war & arguing against it.
The main character, "Casey" Lee, is a decorated American war hero pilot in Japan on business. His career as a glamorous pilot is on the skids & he's become an alcoholic. He gives a press conference.
"["]I'm going to be a goodwill ambassador between Japan and the United States. But I don't care so long as I have a crate to fly. The good old American game of nonsense doesn't bother me."
""You needn't yell about it so," a voice objected. "You're an American, aren't you?"
""That is where I was born," I answered, "but I'm broadminded enough to have my own ideas. I've fought for the Spaniards and the Poles. There are other nations besides the United States—in case you don't know—several others."
""All right, Lee," said someone, "but here you are in a public place. Keep your voice down. A lot of these Japanese are looking at you."
""Let 'em look," I said. "Why should I care if they look? And I'll say anything I damn well please any time at all."" - pp 12-13
Lee goes drunkenely off the deep end, damaging his public image, & is helped back to his room by Mr. Moto, a Japanese detective or espionage expert, who Lee doesn't know. The next day, his advertising flight is cancelled. Soon thereafter, he meets a Russian woman, a spy, named Sonya. I often think of WWII as starting w/ the Japanese invasion of Manchuria — rather than w/ the slightly later nazi invasions. Lee talks w/ Sonya sympathetically about the Japanese there:
""Well, no one objected when your Tsar controlled Manchuria; why should we object when Japan does? It's against the laws of fact to keep eighty million Japanese on a few small islands. If Japan is strong enough to run it, why shouldn't she run Manchuria?"" - p 37
It doesn't take him long to have suspicions about Sonya's motives. Nonetheless, he's strongly attracted to her:
"I did not answer. Whether it was true or not, I was pleased that she liked me, but I still had sense enough to know what she was by then. The ring had told me. It revealed, among other things, that I had never asked her to lunch and that she was a Japanese spy. Not that the idea shocked me. Instead it pleased me. She was a Japanese spy and I was no one—footloose and entirely on my own, being speeded through Tokio in a limousine." - p 41
Lee's sensitivity to Japan's international position continues to be spelled out. Keep in mind that the bk was written a decade before the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
"I could understand Japan's sesnitiveness to any enemy threat from the air. A sight of those unpainted matchboxes of dwellings, with hardly air space between them—and our motor moved through street after street—explained why Japan watched with unconcealed misgivings the contruction of our airplane carriers and the development of Chinese and Russian aviation. A few incendiary bombs were all that would be needed to bring about unimaginable disaster" - pp 43-44
""Think of it this way," she said; "think of a great country which is always moving forward—taking. The United States is moving toward Asia— her hand has reached out over Hawaii, over Guam, over the Philippines. Where is she going to stop?"" - p 51
""He looks to the east and seems to see the gray wall of the American battle fleet. He looks to the west and seems to see the Russian army and the Russian air force. And China. Mongolia is full of agents["]" - p 53
Lee gets sucked into working for Mr. Moto, who's well-mannered but not completely a sympathetic character b/c there's ruthlessness in his profession. While involved, Lee realizes that he still holds loyalty to the US, regardless of his conflicting feelings:
"Men died for their faith who have never been inside a church, and men die for their country, although they may have spent their lives criticizing all its works. The amazing thing about it is that they are probably surprised by their irrational willingness to die." - p 66
Are we then just insects in a hive?
Trapped onboard a ship, Lee finds himself at Mr. Moto's mercy:
""I am so sorry," Mr. Moto said again, "but you must submit to have them search you. Please."
"A single glance at the stewarts and at Mr. Moto convinced me that any further argument was useless, for the men all had an air of complete efficiency written on them which displayed a familiarity with forms of business not usually practiced by steamship employees." - p 118
Lee arrives in China:
"Whenever my mind brings back their faces and rags, an impression of China comes with them which has never been erased. Paradoxically, perhaps, in spite of their stark poverty and evidences of disease and grinding labor, that impression has always been one of peace. It was a peace born of a knowledge of life and of human relationships. I could understand why China had absorbed her conquerors when I watched that ring of faces. Their bland impatience was impervious to any fortune." - p 140
Nonetheless, 14 yrs after this novel was published, the Chinese Communist Revolution started on October 1, 1949. Perhaps that "grinding labor" was a bit too much after all. Did it get better after the revolution? One hopes so.
"I doubt if any city in the world is more amazing than Shanghai, where the culture of the East and West has met to turn curiously into something different than East and West; where the silver and riches of China are hoarded for safety; where opéra-bouffe Oriental millionaires drive their limousines along the Bund; where the interests of Europe meet the Orient and clash in a sparkle of uniforms and jewels; where the practical realities of Western industrialism meet the fatality of the East." - p 162
All in all, I didn't find the writing in Your Turn, Mr. Moto anything to write home about but as an American writer's take on Asia in the 1930s I found it well worth reading.
January 15, 2022
Entertaining mystery/adventure. Gives an insight into the American opinion of the Orient in the 30's. Some twists and turns.
Want to read
March 31, 2019Synopsis: a down-on-his luck airman, a beautiful international adventuress, a mysterious Chinese courier. Enter Mr. Moto to decipher it all.
November 17, 2015
I’ve been a fan of movies for as far back as I can remember. Not just the movies being made today but all movies. This love of film began when I was young, watching those classic black and white movies on the secondary stations as opposed to the networks in the days when there was no such thing as VHS let alone DVD. You watched what was on when it was on. Among those classic old movies were a series of films that starred Peter Lorre as the mysterious detective Mr. Moto. So when I saw this book was available to read I went for it.
Much to my surprise the book featured a Mr. Moto who was far from a sleuth seeking to solve a crime. Instead he is an agent for the Japanese just before the outbreak of WWII. Imagine my surprise. Instead the book is told from the viewpoint of WWI flying ace Casey Lee, a down on his luck pilot looking for any job he can land. Lee is approached by Moto with a job offer that he immediately takes. But as he gets deeper into a trip with Moto and his group he begins to wonder if he’s made a smart choice.
The story involves more espionage than detective story and takes place in the mysterious Far East readers became acquainted with in the days of popular pulp fiction. The writing is solid but at the same time definitely from the time in which it was written, something today’s readers will not be familiar with unless they’ve read books written during this time period. If you know that going in then it won’t be a problem. Today’s books tend to move at a faster pace with thrills and spills happening from chapter to chapter. Here we get the slow unwind of a story that delivers enough clues to hold your interest while never revealing anything early on or with gunplay in every other chapter.
In the end I found the story interesting enough that it made me consider reading more in the series of Mr. Moto books, if for no other reason than to see how things progressed with them. Did he eventually become the sleuth that I remembered from the films? Or were all books involving the character presenting him as an enemy of the U.S. instead? Only time and more reading will tell. A good book for fans of the pulp genre.
Much to my surprise the book featured a Mr. Moto who was far from a sleuth seeking to solve a crime. Instead he is an agent for the Japanese just before the outbreak of WWII. Imagine my surprise. Instead the book is told from the viewpoint of WWI flying ace Casey Lee, a down on his luck pilot looking for any job he can land. Lee is approached by Moto with a job offer that he immediately takes. But as he gets deeper into a trip with Moto and his group he begins to wonder if he’s made a smart choice.
The story involves more espionage than detective story and takes place in the mysterious Far East readers became acquainted with in the days of popular pulp fiction. The writing is solid but at the same time definitely from the time in which it was written, something today’s readers will not be familiar with unless they’ve read books written during this time period. If you know that going in then it won’t be a problem. Today’s books tend to move at a faster pace with thrills and spills happening from chapter to chapter. Here we get the slow unwind of a story that delivers enough clues to hold your interest while never revealing anything early on or with gunplay in every other chapter.
In the end I found the story interesting enough that it made me consider reading more in the series of Mr. Moto books, if for no other reason than to see how things progressed with them. Did he eventually become the sleuth that I remembered from the films? Or were all books involving the character presenting him as an enemy of the U.S. instead? Only time and more reading will tell. A good book for fans of the pulp genre.
March 15, 2016
While I was searching for Charlie Chan, I discovered a cache of Mr. Moto books on the Canadian Gutenberg site (Charlie Chan comes from the Australian Gutenberg site). Anyway, I had some vague recollections of, or references to anyway, Mr. Moto from my childhood and thought perhaps he was similar to Charlie Chan, albeit Japanese instead of Chinese American. Nope, Charlie is an American police detective, albeit of Chinese extraction. Mr. Moto, on the other hand is a Japanese spy working for the glory of Imperial Japan in the 1930s.
The protagonist of this book is actually not Mr. Moto, but an American aviator, K. C. Lee. He is in Tokyo, expecting to fly across the Pacific in a publicity stunt arranged to advertise a tobacco company. But the flight falls through, and K.C., who has become rather a disreputable drunk, whines and complains and blames his troubles on his home country, i.e. America. Mr. Moto happens to overhear him and thinks perhaps he can get K.C. to help him find some secret naval plans that have gone missing. He, Mr. Moto, gets a beautiful white Russian ex-pat who grew up in Northern China to vamp K.C. and see if he might be recruited to help find the missing plans. Needless there's lots of skullduggery and attempts to kill K.C. and others and it all ends "adequately" for all sides.
While Mr. Moto is a spy, he is a polite one. He doesn't hold any animosity toward the people he's working against. It's almost like the old-fashioned view of sports from the Victorian era, you fight like hell for the victory, then go off at the end to have tea together, the best of friends, hoping for another "good show" another day. Or something like that. I'm vaguely undecided whether I'll read the next Mr. Moto or not, but likely I well. The story is well plotted and well written.
The protagonist of this book is actually not Mr. Moto, but an American aviator, K. C. Lee. He is in Tokyo, expecting to fly across the Pacific in a publicity stunt arranged to advertise a tobacco company. But the flight falls through, and K.C., who has become rather a disreputable drunk, whines and complains and blames his troubles on his home country, i.e. America. Mr. Moto happens to overhear him and thinks perhaps he can get K.C. to help him find some secret naval plans that have gone missing. He, Mr. Moto, gets a beautiful white Russian ex-pat who grew up in Northern China to vamp K.C. and see if he might be recruited to help find the missing plans. Needless there's lots of skullduggery and attempts to kill K.C. and others and it all ends "adequately" for all sides.
While Mr. Moto is a spy, he is a polite one. He doesn't hold any animosity toward the people he's working against. It's almost like the old-fashioned view of sports from the Victorian era, you fight like hell for the victory, then go off at the end to have tea together, the best of friends, hoping for another "good show" another day. Or something like that. I'm vaguely undecided whether I'll read the next Mr. Moto or not, but likely I well. The story is well plotted and well written.
March 19, 2014
This was a most enjoyable read, and beautifully detailed with political events of the time that heightened the immediacy. Written in the mid-1930's, it includes some disturbing predictions, such as the impact of the horrendous fire-bombing of Osaka.
I've seen the Mr. Moto movies starring Peter Lorre a number of times. For fans of those films, this first novel will be a bit unsettling. Mr. Moto is a spy-master, so much more multi-faceted than the "special operative" of the motion pictures. Sometimes he's on the side of the angels...and sometimes not. Indeed, it is likely that Mr. Lorre would not have grown tired of the films if he'd had the opportunity to explore this character's nuances.
The story is definitely a child of the 30’s, with an excellent sense of exotic atmosphere...and, from what I've read elsewhere, an accurate portrayal of the original Sin City, Shanghai. Casey Lee, the central character, is particularly believable...and his presence argues for the original title of the book, NO HERO.
I don't give the effort full marks for two reasons. First, it is written in the first person. Since part of the thrill of narratives such as this one is whether or not a character will survive the many traps set along the way, the "I" character assures us that we'll only need to be concerned with "How?" questions...not the more interesting "If" issues. Also, although very likable and capable, Sonya's dialogue is not well-written. Her words often suggest that she may be about to swoon, and that is belied by her actions.
These are minor quibbles, though. It is a very worthwhile first book in the series, and I do plan to continue with the other books.
I've seen the Mr. Moto movies starring Peter Lorre a number of times. For fans of those films, this first novel will be a bit unsettling. Mr. Moto is a spy-master, so much more multi-faceted than the "special operative" of the motion pictures. Sometimes he's on the side of the angels...and sometimes not. Indeed, it is likely that Mr. Lorre would not have grown tired of the films if he'd had the opportunity to explore this character's nuances.
The story is definitely a child of the 30’s, with an excellent sense of exotic atmosphere...and, from what I've read elsewhere, an accurate portrayal of the original Sin City, Shanghai. Casey Lee, the central character, is particularly believable...and his presence argues for the original title of the book, NO HERO.
I don't give the effort full marks for two reasons. First, it is written in the first person. Since part of the thrill of narratives such as this one is whether or not a character will survive the many traps set along the way, the "I" character assures us that we'll only need to be concerned with "How?" questions...not the more interesting "If" issues. Also, although very likable and capable, Sonya's dialogue is not well-written. Her words often suggest that she may be about to swoon, and that is belied by her actions.
These are minor quibbles, though. It is a very worthwhile first book in the series, and I do plan to continue with the other books.
February 8, 2018
K.C. Lee, or Casey, as he is called, is the protagonist of the first Mr. Moto book, No Hero. Mr. Moto himself is a Japanese enemy agent, albeit someone of honor, wisdom but murderous efficiency, too.
Set in the early 1930s, No Hero perfectly captures the mood of the times. The rising power of Japan, the naval arms race in the Pacific, and the dismemberment of China all play thematically in Marquand's look at the Orient. And it should be the "Orient," here, not "Asia." Culturally, the Orient of the 1930s signified unknowable peoples and cultures, alien values, and a decadent disregard for life. Race is an acknowledged ideal of the book. No Hero plays up to these motifs and ideals but incorporates them into a convincing "hardboiled" detective story. It should be pointed out that Casey is no detective, not even a spy as are all the other main characters in this novel, but an aviator down on his luck, an adventurer looking for someone to finance his next journey. It is this that entraps him into the ring of spies he must deal with.
And there is a love interest, an effective femme fatale, Sonya. All plays out in the expected fashion of the genre. But it does so against the grand sweep of the Orient--Tokyo, Yokohama, Shanghai, and the Chinese interior. The setting of 1930s Shanghai has now become iconic. But when Marquand was writing this novel, he was one of those helping to establish and define the iconography of the "Mysterious East."
Set in the early 1930s, No Hero perfectly captures the mood of the times. The rising power of Japan, the naval arms race in the Pacific, and the dismemberment of China all play thematically in Marquand's look at the Orient. And it should be the "Orient," here, not "Asia." Culturally, the Orient of the 1930s signified unknowable peoples and cultures, alien values, and a decadent disregard for life. Race is an acknowledged ideal of the book. No Hero plays up to these motifs and ideals but incorporates them into a convincing "hardboiled" detective story. It should be pointed out that Casey is no detective, not even a spy as are all the other main characters in this novel, but an aviator down on his luck, an adventurer looking for someone to finance his next journey. It is this that entraps him into the ring of spies he must deal with.
And there is a love interest, an effective femme fatale, Sonya. All plays out in the expected fashion of the genre. But it does so against the grand sweep of the Orient--Tokyo, Yokohama, Shanghai, and the Chinese interior. The setting of 1930s Shanghai has now become iconic. But when Marquand was writing this novel, he was one of those helping to establish and define the iconography of the "Mysterious East."
July 31, 2017
Hollywood has managed to film and ruin a lot of good books. Among the series novels,and characters, that Hollywood destroyed were Charlie Chan, Mr. Wong, and Mr. Moto. And to make matters worse, these three fictional asian characters were played by caucasian actors. I'm not sure that I will ever understand how that happened.
Your Turn, Mr. Moto, is the first of the six Mr. Moto novels written by Pulitzer Prize winning author, John. P. Marquand. This book, from the mid-1930's, is a great adventure/espionage story. It takes place in Japan and China,and the main character is Casey (K. C.) Lee, a famous American World War I pilot. By accident he ends up with a piece of information that the Chinese, Japanese, and Russians want to get their hands on. Marquand's Mr. Moto turns out to be a Japanese spy! This is an exciting period piece, complete with a femme fatal. Step back into the 1930's for a highly entertaining novel of high adventure!
Your Turn, Mr. Moto, is the first of the six Mr. Moto novels written by Pulitzer Prize winning author, John. P. Marquand. This book, from the mid-1930's, is a great adventure/espionage story. It takes place in Japan and China,and the main character is Casey (K. C.) Lee, a famous American World War I pilot. By accident he ends up with a piece of information that the Chinese, Japanese, and Russians want to get their hands on. Marquand's Mr. Moto turns out to be a Japanese spy! This is an exciting period piece, complete with a femme fatal. Step back into the 1930's for a highly entertaining novel of high adventure!
April 16, 2020
In the aftermath of WW I, American flying ace K.C. ("Casey") Lee finds his career collapsing. He jumps at the opportunity to go to Japan under the auspices of an American tobacco company, which will finance his flying solo across the Pacific, a feat no one to that time had accomplished. Once he is in Japan, however, Lee is informed that this gig has been cancelled, leaving him stranded in Asia...and very bitter against his own country. He drinks heavily and makes intemperate statements that alienate his fellow countrymen in Japan. Then his path crosses the mysterious Mr. Moto, who sends him on a new mission. He meets the beautiful Sonya, a Russian involved in some way with Mr. Moto and his plans. Then a dead body turns up and Lee is on the run -- from the authorities as well as other sinister men. -- I enjoyed this book for what it was: a rather light mystery/adventure story...with just as dash of romance.
January 23, 2016
Marquand's Mr. Moto books provide a glimpse back into time to the 1930's. The reader can see that political maneuvering and espionage were just as prevalent in the first half of the twentieth century as they are today.
Japan was flexing it's power in Asia and Pearl Harbor was still years away. America and Americans were uncertain of Japan. Marquand's books reflect this uncertainty and contain a rather ambivalent but respectful portrayal of the Japanese super spy, Mr. Moto. Moto is a dangerous and intelligent man who is never to be underestimated.
For me,YOUR TURN, MR. MOTO is a very satisfying thriller, the technology has changed, but human emotions and motives have not. This is a good book for any fan of the spy genre who would like to take a little trip back in time.
Japan was flexing it's power in Asia and Pearl Harbor was still years away. America and Americans were uncertain of Japan. Marquand's books reflect this uncertainty and contain a rather ambivalent but respectful portrayal of the Japanese super spy, Mr. Moto. Moto is a dangerous and intelligent man who is never to be underestimated.
For me,YOUR TURN, MR. MOTO is a very satisfying thriller, the technology has changed, but human emotions and motives have not. This is a good book for any fan of the spy genre who would like to take a little trip back in time.
March 5, 2019
Ex-patriot US pilot falls in with spies in pre-WWII Asia, finding love and a renewed sense of honor in the course of his exotic adventures. (It was a hard call on this between 3 and 4 stars. The story was somewhat pedestrian, but Marquand's exquisitely honed writing made this a real pleasure.)
September 1, 2014
Fine for what it is, a 1930's detective story. Interesting for its predictions about a coming US-Japanese conflict. Very annoying for its repetitious use of peoples names. Every conversation involves reading the names of the participants a few dozen times - unnecessary and distracting.
July 4, 2016
Some exciting and entertaining parts, but mostly silly. Published in 1935, and it shows.
April 3, 2022
I stumbled on this 2020 edition of a 1935 novel at the Poisoned Pen bookstore in Scottsdale and picked it up, having heard of Mr. Moto, the Japanese secret agent/detective, for years, and having recently seen the first movie, "Think Fast, Mr. Moto," with Peter Lorre. In this Otto Penzler edition, the introduction by crime writer Lawrence Block repeats the apparently-common wisdom that respected author John P. Marquand was asked by The Saturday Evening Post to come up with a new "Oriental detective" after the death of Charlie Chan's creator, Earl D. Biggers. So I was frankly expecting a whodunit. "Your Turn, Mr. Moto" is nothing of the sort, though. It's essentially a "get the thing before someone else gets the thing" adventure, set in Japan and China, and one of the amazing aspects of the book is how familiar the beats are. Down on his luck hero meets mysterious woman who may or may not be up to no good...dead body in the hero's room...hairsbreadth escape out the porthole of a ship...gunshot's just a flesh wound in the arm, nothing to worry about...interview with polite but supremely powerful criminal who wants the thing...hairsbreadth escape from a free-for-all in a nightclub...the fate of nations hanging in the balance because of the thing but then there's a twist because the story has to end without the real world being changed...you've seen so many of these so many times, but in 1935 they'd probably only appeared a hundred times, rather than a hundred thousand. And none of this happens to Mr. Moto--he's not the hero; he's a Japanese spymaster politely manipulating the hero, a really unattractive American aviator who is gradually pulled into some semblance of decency. Marquand called his book "No Hero," and it's a good one. I have no idea what The Saturday Evening Post thought. (But they must have liked it, since Marquand wrote several sequels very quickly, all with "...Mr. Moto" in the title, and the movie series--with Moto as more of a highly-dangerous international agent solving crimes--got going quickly.)
What does raise the book into the realm of of real interest is the reportage. This is a 1935 novel ABOUT many aspects of 1935, from a first-hand perspective. Marquand notes, with real wonder and excitement, how cities like "Tokio" and Shanghai are becoming Westernized, with enormous skyscrapers. In the nightclub scene, a Chinese singer does a bad but sincere imitation of "negro" singing, and a detail like that, too specific to have been invented, is a snapshot of the past. It's quite clear from the book that the possibility of war between the US and Japan was a very real possibility in 1935--six years before Pearl Harbor--and Marquand's hero notes that, modern as "Tokio" is becoming, that so much of it is wooden houses that would go up in flames in a bombing raid. Which is exactly what would happen less than a decade later. Marquand is, though, surprisingly easy on prewar Japan. The book was written two years before the "Rape of Nanking," but Japan had already, in 1931, carved out an illegal area of Manchuria for itself, calling it "Manchuokuo." Marquand's hero figures, Japan feels threatened from many sides, its population is too large to be confined to its tiny islands, and, hey, Russia owned Manchuria a generation earlier, so why should America -- being run by "communistic" New Dealers -- be so hypocritically condemnatory? I found myself pushing through all that until the plot started. By the way, in terms of plot--I don't believe the one murder is ever actually solved. Oh, and while looking for the thing, Mr. Moto supervises a full body cavity search of the hero which must have been really shocking in 1935 and might have inspired Ian Fleming to ratchet things up many degrees with a wicker chair and a carpet beater in "Casino Royale." Now, I want to read the sequel...to see if Mr. Moto actually solves a crime.
What does raise the book into the realm of of real interest is the reportage. This is a 1935 novel ABOUT many aspects of 1935, from a first-hand perspective. Marquand notes, with real wonder and excitement, how cities like "Tokio" and Shanghai are becoming Westernized, with enormous skyscrapers. In the nightclub scene, a Chinese singer does a bad but sincere imitation of "negro" singing, and a detail like that, too specific to have been invented, is a snapshot of the past. It's quite clear from the book that the possibility of war between the US and Japan was a very real possibility in 1935--six years before Pearl Harbor--and Marquand's hero notes that, modern as "Tokio" is becoming, that so much of it is wooden houses that would go up in flames in a bombing raid. Which is exactly what would happen less than a decade later. Marquand is, though, surprisingly easy on prewar Japan. The book was written two years before the "Rape of Nanking," but Japan had already, in 1931, carved out an illegal area of Manchuria for itself, calling it "Manchuokuo." Marquand's hero figures, Japan feels threatened from many sides, its population is too large to be confined to its tiny islands, and, hey, Russia owned Manchuria a generation earlier, so why should America -- being run by "communistic" New Dealers -- be so hypocritically condemnatory? I found myself pushing through all that until the plot started. By the way, in terms of plot--I don't believe the one murder is ever actually solved. Oh, and while looking for the thing, Mr. Moto supervises a full body cavity search of the hero which must have been really shocking in 1935 and might have inspired Ian Fleming to ratchet things up many degrees with a wicker chair and a carpet beater in "Casino Royale." Now, I want to read the sequel...to see if Mr. Moto actually solves a crime.
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