2 0 2 0 TO P N O TA B L E I N D I E S NOTABLE
N O TA B L E
BLACK DRAGON by David Benjamin
SUMMER OF '68 by David Benjamin
Steve Knight, international correspondent for newsweekly US Journal, has returned to Tokyo, where a terrorist bomb strikes, killing his Japanese assistant, Kuniko Nishimura. As bombings and murders continue, old “Japan hand” Ike Greenwald points Steve toward the Black Dragon Society, a fascist cabal whose ruthless believers have been embedded within Japanese politics since the 1880s. Banned and disbanded by the post-war U.S. Occupation, the Black Dragons have abided quietly, building strength and numbers — with fanatic secrecy — inside Japan’s corridors of power. The rain of political murders paralyzes Tokyo. Steve, Ike and Kuniko’s daughter, Mie and hunt for “Lord Toyama,” a Black Dragon capo who is systematically killing off the entire Japanese Imperial family. In the climax, Steve, Mie and Ike find themselves the last best hope to save the Emperor’s life. In Ike’s vintage VW Beetle, they scramble to avoid midnight military patrols loyal to Toyama, while also worrying about the whereabouts of an Australian hitman called Dingo. To warn the Emperor — and to save their own skins — they must beat both the good guys and the bad guys in a mad race around Tokyo Station and the Imperial Palace.
It’s two months after Rev. King’s murder. It’s four days since Bobby Kennedy was shot, and Franklin Roosevelt Cribbs is going to camp. “Cribbsy,” barely out of high school, suspects that this is no normal summer. He swiftly discovers that this is no normal summer camp. Camp Nantoka is a raw slice of Chicago, stretching from its neurotic suburbs to its darkest ghettos. Nor are Cribbsy’s sixteen 11-year-olds normal. They’re “gifted,” chosen to spend ten intensive weeks studying the arts, music and theater, guided by eccentric professors from universities throughout the Midwest. In the mosquito-plagued Wisconsin woods, the tempestuous Sixties unfold in dizzying microcosm. Cribbsy bumbles into the racial anger that tears at America. He plays softball with ex-gangbangers. Before he knows what’s happening, he’s in love, with a streetwise poetess whom he has no business loving. On a day off just before the explosive ’68 Democratic Convention, Cribbsy is surrounded and menaced by angry Chicago police. Caught between high school and history, Cribbsy has to change, learn and grow up fast lest he fall victim to events that threaten to trample him before he can get out of their way.
112
DECEMBER / JANUARY 2021