“The red star of Cadiz” is a super fun novel. An entertainment at its best, especially for lovers of corny Hollywood action flicks.
In 1975, the founder of a PR firm was asked to search for a guitar studded with precious diamonds, the most valuable of which was the “red star of Cadiz”. The search begins in Japan and spans almost half the book. This part is similar to, if not better than the detective works of Seicho Matsumoto. The events of the second half of the book take place in Spain where the PR guy finds himself involved with terror cells plotting to assassinate generalissimo Franco. This part reads like a perfect script for a cheesy political thriller with all the cliches of an immortal hero with too many “what the ..” coincidences. Although the novel is definitely not a literary masterpiece, it is very entertaining. The first half is a solid 5 while the second half is 4 stars at best boosted by a couple of melodramatic events at the end to give this novel an overall rating of 5.
In Osaka Go's ambitious, multi-award-winning novel, a hard-boiled Japanese PR guy who loves Spain goes on a hunt for a valuable flamenco guitar and gets mixed up with extremists in both Japan and Spain. This book has plenty of action, humor, romance, and flamenco, as well as a mixed race wannabe terrorist. There were a couple of moments of melodrama at the end, but for the most part I found this book highly entertaining.
The book took a while to get going: the first few scenes set in Japan introduced perhaps a few too many characters (some of them quite similar) and scenes that seemed trivial. But then, when the action moves to Spain during the dying years of the Franco regime, the story catches fire. An author obviously very knowledgeable about Spain and flamenco music, and able to convey his passion to the reader.