War Machine

An enfilade of pervasive gunfire in the predawn hours shocks the residents on Hong Bay in southern Hong Kong at the start of Marshall's new novel about the exploits of the Yellowthread Street police. Chief Feiffer, Detective O'Yee, their mad pals Auden and Spencer make no headway in trying to discover where the shots are coming from during tense days when the assaults proliferate. The team's investigation is complicated by murders and the growing rumors that holdouts from the defeated Japanese army are in an impenetrable tunnel, ready to destroy the city. Consulting several people who remember unspeakable tortures inflicted by the victorious Japanese 40 years earlier during WW II, Feiffer pieces together parts of a puzzle that reveal a dreadful conspiracy. The novel ends in a white-knuckle confrontation between the mysterious killer and his pursuers as they race to avert an unimaginable disaster. Marshall has few peers as an author who melds the wildest comedy and tragedy in narratives of nonstop action. This one is his best yet. (February 4)