Remote Control

Masaharu Aoyagi is a driver for a delivery company in the city of Sendai in northern Japan. Two years ago he had achieved brief notoriety for rescuing a local starlet from a robbery attempt while making a delivery to her apartment. Now he is back in the spotlight-this time as the main suspect in the assassination of a newly elected, young, and charismatic prime minister who had returned to Sendai, for a victory parade.

Told in six parts from several perspectives, Golden Slumbers follows Aoyagi on a forty-eight-hour chase through streets, buildings, and sewers as he-by various ingenious means, and with a little help from his friends-eludes not only the authorities but also "security pods" set up throughout the city to monitor cell phone transmissions and street traffic. Very quickly it becomes clear that Aoyagi has been framed by a shadowy organization, and the whole scenario plays out like the JFK assassination, with Aoyagi in Oswald's shoes, trying to discover who has set him up and why -- before it is too late.

With nostalgic references to the Beatles and allusions to the JFK assassination, and with its likeable characters and unforgettable dialogue, Golden Slumbers packs an emotional punch as it races to its stunning conclusion.

Kotaro Isaka is among Japan's most exciting, talented young authors, recently touted as one of "Haruki's children" because of his ability to straddle both serious and popular fiction as Haruki Murakami has done. And like Murakami, Isaka defies an easy label as a writer. His voice and storytelling skills are truly his own. Now, in this first-rate translation by Stephen Snyder, American readers will have the pleasure of discovering an author they are sure to embrace as enthusiastically as have their Japanese counterparts.