Seesaw Monster

It starts with a quiet conversation but soon hellzapoppin’ in this enjoyable and startlingly original thriller by Japan’s Isaka (Bullet Train). Over drinks, friends discuss how women are better than men at distinguishing between what one says in conversation and what one means. This becomes a motif in the book: the difference between what’s stated and what’s implied, how appearance so easily deceives. The story is packed to overflowing. A spy meets a stranger on a train and marries him. Later, she foils a deadly nerve-gas attack. She and her mother-in-law instinctively hate each other, but why? Because she’s one of the People of the Sea (blue-eyed), while her mother-in-law is descended from the People of the Mountain (with oversized ears), so they’re born to fight. There are even special agents (with one blue eye and one large ear) whose assignment is stopping the conflict from escalating to mankind’s destruction. There are several suspicious deaths, all eventually explained. Finally, there’s a desperate flight to shut down a rogue AI, which is pushing humankind to war, as it believes that humanity only evolves through conflict, and the action culminates at a rock concert.