@Cross-cultural communication i149j@
149) The Silent Cuckoo
This is connected to the previous entry (No. 148), but it is purely coincidental. The title of this entry is the title of a novel by Ryuichi Tejima, who specializes in nonfiction and novels about diplomatic issues and espionage. I read it in February 2024. He is a former NHK Washington Bureau Chief who gained fame for his 11-day, 24-hour continuous live coverage of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. When I wrote gGulf Crisis Confidentialh on this website, I referenced his book gDiplomatic Defeat: 13 Billion Dollars Vanished into Sandh to outline the Gulf Crisis in the?prologue, Gulf Crisis, confidential (1), That sparked my interest in Mr. Tejima, and I have read almost all of his works.
This title represents the position of the young protagonist, who works for the Public Security Investigation Agency. The bird called the cuckoo lays its eggs in other birds' nests and makes the nest's owner do all the work of a parent bird, such as incubating the eggs and feeding the chicks. The Public Security Investigation Agency is a small, underfunded agency with no arrest authority, lacking in both organization and budget compared to the Public Security Police and the Ministry of Defense. However, when it comes to passion and determination in intelligence activities aimed at gathering information vital to national interests, it does not lag behind other organizations. In other words, it is an organization that, like the cuckoo, uses its wits to create something from nothing. gSilenth means that, due to the nature of their work, they cannot tell anyone about their status or achievements.
Now, the company where the protagonist of this story, S?ta Kaji, works (organizations of this kind refer to themselves as gkaisha; companyh to conceal their identity) is located in my hometown of Kobe. Therefore, places such as Sannomiya's Toa Road and the former foreign settlement appear in the story. The icing on the cake is that the residence of the Ukrainian man who plays an important role in the story is none other than Rokko Island in Higashinada Ward, where I have lived for 30 years. The detailed descriptions of Kobe's streets, including real names, were also well-researched and accurate.
This work is a classic spy novel that includes content predicting the intelligence war between Ukraine, China, North Korea, Russia, and Western countries, as well as Russia's invasion of Ukraine that began in 2022. In addition, it has an excellent storyline, and given the young age of the protagonist, a sequel seems likely. (I would have liked to give a brief summary of the plot, but I can't really do that...)
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