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Mr. Moto # 1-3
The Mr. Moto Novels Volume One: Your Turn, Mr. Moto; Thank You, Mr. Moto; and Think Fast, Mr. Moto
John P. Marquand’s classic espionage series features Imperial Japan’s most skillful spy and the cloak-and-dagger intrigue of Asia between the world wars. In Your Turn, Mr. Moto, the abrupt cancellation of a transpacific flight strands World War I flying ace Casey Lee in Tokyo, leaving him with little choice but to accept a lucrative job offer from Japanese secret agent Mr. Moto. The mission begins on a steamship bound for Shanghai, where Casey’s fellow passengers include Mr. Moto and Sonya, a beautiful exile from White Russia. When a Chinese man turns up dead in Casey’s stateroom, the trio is caught up in a dangerous game of subterfuge, the outcome of which might just determine the fate of their nations. Set in 1930s Peking, Thank You, Mr. Moto, follows Tom Nelson, a jaded American expatriate, as he tries to help a gorgeous art dealer clear her name and find the real killer of a British ex-army officer trafficking stolen goods. The search leads Tom and Eleanor Joyce straight into the clutches of General Wu Lo Feng, a notorious warlord from the North who has surreptitiously entered the city. Tom and Eleanor’s only hope for survival is Mr. Moto, but can they trust the enigmatic spymaster—or are they pawns in a secret plot with stakes as monumental as they are sinister? In Think Fast, Mr. Moto, a Honolulu gambling establishment has become a key strand in a web of political and financial intrigue stretching all the way to the Far East. Sent to convince his cousin, Eva, to close the casino, Wilson Hitchings uncovers the plot and realizes just how much danger his family is in. He and Eva have no choice but to trust Japanese secret agent Mr. Moto, who claims to be in Hawaii on a similar mission. With a cast of shady international characters tracking their every move, this unlikely trio could be facing odds far too long to beat. First serialized in the Saturday Evening Post, the popular and acclaimed Mr. Moto Novels, which were the inspiration for eight films starring Peter Lorre, provide some of the most compelling and realistic depictions of spycraft in early twentieth-century fiction.
587 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 28, 2016
76 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
John P. Marquand
92 books59 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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September 11, 2020
Mr. Moto is an enigma but likeable.
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