The Special Prisoner

May 1, 2000
As in his previous novel, White Widow, the plot of newscaster-writer Lehrer's newest book turns on a chance encounter. In this case the pivotal meeting is between retired Methodist Bishop John Quincy Watson of San Antonio, Tex., an elderly ex-B-29 pilot and POW, and a Japanese businessman in whose eyes Watson sees the stare of the interrogator who tortured him. Incredulous that his old nemesis could have survived, Watson nevertheless discovers that the stranger has checked into a San Diego hotel under the interrogator's last name, and he decides to confront him. Mr. Tashimoto, however, denies he is the former camp official his prisoners nicknamed "the Hyena" because of his sadistic laugh. With this tension-filled standoff underway, Lehrer suspensefully alternates between Watson's harrowing memories of WWII and his present-day cat-and-mouse interrogation with the roles reversed. The first half of the narrative is a provocative, at times wrenching, dramatization of racism, war crimes and revenge--with right not necessarily on Watson's side--but the second is deprived of much of its drive when Watson tragically loses control of the situation and is brought to trial for his violent behavior. Although the ending does not satisfactorily resolve the moral ambiguity of its tantalizing premise, Lehrer's novel successfully illuminates still-sensitive issues for both the U.S. and Japan.

January 1, 2000
Fifty years later, a U.S. airman encounters the Japanese who tortured him as a POW during World War II.

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2000
Some of PBS anchor Lehrer's popular novels have been fairly lighthearted, but this one is deadly serious, and likely to generate controversy. A chance airport encounter sends retired Methodist bishop John Quincy Watson to San Diego, following a man whose too-familiar eyes drag Watson 50 years into the past, to a Japanese prisoner of war camp, where the then youthful, red-haired B-29 pilot became a "special prisoner" when captured after parachuting from his dying plane. His pursuit of the interrogator he knew as Tashimoto, the Hyena, alternates with the minister's memories of the horrors of Camp Sengei 4. It is Watson's religious faith that builds tension here: Watson returned from Japan impotent, with a gruesomely weakened leg, but seminary education and his pastoral assignments gave him time to work through the hatred he had carried back from Japan. Or did they? Confrontation between aging former enemies in a San Diego hotel room forces Lehrer's characters--and readers--to meditate once again about essential moral questions. ((Reviewed May 1, 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)

February 15, 2000
The title of Lehrer's 14th book, a harrowing novel of redemption and revenge, refers to the designation the Japanese gave to captured U.S. airmen, for whom they reserved the most horrific torture. In alternating chapters, the first half of the novel ricochets between John Quincy Watson's World War II experiences as a B-29 bomber pilot and (mostly) Japanese POW and his present-day encounter--he is a retired Methodist bishop--with the man he knew as his Japanese torturer, Tashimoto. The second part of the novel, a trial, condemns both the brutality of Japanese treatment of POWs and the U.S. bombing attacks on Japan, along with lingering U.S. racism against the Japanese. While the lean prose and fast pace mean that some of the men in the prison camp are too sketchily drawn for us to care about them, both Watson and his friend Henry Howell are fully realized. Lehrer offers no easy answers in this gripping, sorrowful story that moves well beyond the satire that characterizes his earlier works. Recommended, especially where World War II novels are popular. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/00; for an interview with Lehrer, see p. 199.--Ed.]--Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal"

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.