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Review by Booklist Review

In two distinct but connected narratives, Isaka interweaves the trademark everyman assassins and agile wit that readers have loved since Bullet Train (2021) with thought-provoking examinations of unresolvable conflict. Tokyo pharmaceutical representative Naoto finds the constant sniping between his wife, Miyako, and his mother maddening. Preoccupied by their strife, Naoto doesn't question his coworker's insistence that Naoto take over a prized hospital account. Too late, Naoto realizes that the hospital is fronting a yakuza fraud scheme, and his honesty makes him a target. Fortunately, his wife and mother each have a hidden past as a spy, and his rescue merits détente. In Isaka's second story, the Great Blackout of 2031 has rendered digital communication unreliable; mail courier Mito is hired to deliver a renowned AI developer's plea to his former partner, Chusonji, to destroy their power-hungry rogue code. As internet-fueled attacks between east and west Tokyo threaten to overwhelm authorities, Mito and Chusonji seek now-elderly Miyako's help. This propulsive genre-bender with fuel for thought is a winner for book clubs.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Isaka's exceptional latest (after Hotel Lucky Seven) combines the author's flair for violent comic farce with an unsettling look at the near future. In 1980s Japan, salaryman Naoto's mother has moved in with him and his wife, Miyako, unleashing a torrent of bickering and belittlement between the two women. The constant skirmishes reveal some deep similarities between the women, including that both have backgrounds as secret agents. When Naoto gets embroiled in some shady business involving the yakuza, Miyako and her mother-in-law team up and knock some heads. The action then skips ahead several decades, depicting a mid-21st century where electronic hypersurveillance makes written communications and hand-delivered messages potent currency. When courier Mito is given an unexpected assignment, he's pulled into a scientist's effort to destroy his creation: an omnipotent AI called Velkasery. After the government tries to stop them, the pair flee to the mountains, where an elderly Miyako offers them refuge. Isaka's talent for kinetic, hilarious carnage ("Male hormones are the worst," Miyako thinks after kicking an opponent in the crotch) is on full display, and it's fortified with philosophical depth and surprisingly potent ruminations on the nature of fate. This ranks among the author's best. (July)

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Review by Library Journal Review

It starts with a quiet conversation but soon hellzapoppin' in this enjoyable and startlingly original thriller by Japan's Isaka (Bullet Train). Over drinks, friends discuss how women are better than men at distinguishing between what one says in conversation and what one means. This becomes a motif in the book: the difference between what's stated and what's implied, how appearance so easily deceives. The story is packed to overflowing. A spy meets a stranger on a train and marries him. Later, she foils a deadly nerve-gas attack. She and her mother-in-law instinctively hate each other, but why? Because she's one of the People of the Sea (blue-eyed), while her mother-in-law is descended from the People of the Mountain (with oversized ears), so they're born to fight. There are even special agents (with one blue eye and one large ear) whose assignment is stopping the conflict from escalating to mankind's destruction. There are several suspicious deaths, all eventually explained. Finally, there's a desperate flight to shut down a rogue AI, which is pushing humankind to war, as it believes that humanity only evolves through conflict, and the action culminates at a rock concert. VERDICT Fans of Haruki Murakami and William Gibson will love this wild, exuberant novel that combines mythology, family drama, espionage, and technology and already has a film adaptation in the works (starring Anne Hathaway and Salma Hayek). It's fun all the way through.--David Keymer

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