Three of the Mr.Moto stories, two overlapping with the Mr. Moto four-story collection published later. ( )

"Mr Moto" was a popular series of novels written back before the Second World war. I'd heard of them, but never read them, having a sort of vague impression that "Mr Moto" was a kind of Japanese "Charlie Chan." When I came across this omnibus at a local library sale, I decided to spend the 25 cents to find out for myself.

To begin with, let me say that any reader with 21st century sensibilities may be quite put off of these these books. While they're pleasantly free of outright racism, their portrayal of Asian characters is often quite stereotyped. Moto's broken "oh, am so very, very sorry," English is certainly not something you'd find in a modern novel.

What makes it just palatable to me is the extraordinary cynicism with it it is deployed. Moto is, in fact, no "Charlie Chan" detective, but a spy, and an agent of an Imperial Japanese faction. His humility is a facade, his English just one of his languages. He's quite prepared to lie, steal, threaten or kill to advance his aims, no differently than James Bond. He seems to bank on the arrogance of Westerners basing their estimates of him on his English, in fact. Westerners in the books who rely on Asians being the stereotypes they seem to be, often pay dearly for that mistake.

That said, I don't actually like the series very much. It's slow moving, and Moto, the most interesting character, is on stage too little. The language is sometimes ponderous and wandering. I'll keep the book on my shelf as a curiosity, but I'm not a fan. ( )

Three spy novels by John Marquand, all featuring the inscrutable Mr. Moto, and all very much period pieces. The books were written in 1936, 1937, and 1938, and drip with the atmosphere of a world already at was in Asia. They have the prejudices of their period (most of the "Orientals" are "wily" and "inscrutable") but they also present the atmosphere of the time very vividly. The three novels are variations on the same plot -- young American man gets involved in intrigue which is way over his head, and gets out of it with the help of Mr. Moto and a beautiful girl. They are set around the Pacific, and bring another era very much to life. ( )