Remote control is a thriller set in Sendai, Japan. The story begins with the killing of the prime minister of Japan by a bomb which was delivered by an unknown man using a remote control helicopter. The beginning of the story focuses on two men who share a room in a hospital who watch the events unfold on their televisions. Through the commentary by the men and the news reports, the reader is shown the excitement and the uncertainty of the unfolding events. A suspect is named and sightings of the suspect are reported. But, in the next chapter of the book, the men from the hospital drop from the focus and the reader is taken 20 years into the future and the mysterious events surrounding the bombing are discussed. Then in the next chapter, the book jumps backwards in time and resumes in the hours before the bombing. The jumps in time and characters was an interesting, but slightly confusing device to introduce the background of the story from a distance before the main characters are introduced in first person and the plot rapidly takes off.

Once the story resumes, the reader is introduced to Aoyagi who is meeting with an old friend from his high school days. His old group of friends are people who Aoyagi lost touch with, but they are never far from his thoughts. It is from his friend that Aoyagi first learns that he has been caught in something sinister. Soon Aoyagi finds himself being chased by mysterious men who accuse him of killing the prime minister. As the force of a mysterious machine is set in motion against Aoyagi including the police and the electronic eavesdropping pods, Aoyagi is constantly facing close calls as he tries to understand what is happening and to figure out what he can do to prove his innocence.

I really enjoyed Remote Control. I found the translated text to be perhaps simplistic in places, but overall the sentences flowed well. The plot is fast paced and the book became harder and harder to put down and the story began to unfold. The storyline does have some tangents, but I found that Aoyagi's memories of his high school friends served to underline the bonds that remained between Aoyagi and his friends and why they would risk helping him. The tangents also served to humanize Aoyagi which makes him very different from the cold, mysterious machine which is working against him.

The book includes commentary on the Big Brother society that the world has become where personal freedoms have been whittled away in the name of fighting terrorism. In the case of Remote Control, the invasion of privacy is done by pods which are distributed throughout the city which record mobile telephone conversations as well as audio and video from their environment. They were placed in the name of catching a serial killer but were actually used to monitor the citizens in the name of protecting them.

I found the intrusive surveillance state in Remote Control to be very believable in this day and age and that someone who is innocent could be framed to be entirely plausible. However, what I did find less believable was that strangers would risk being sent to prison by helping the accused and that the strangers were able to help him in so many ways and so effectively.

Overall, a page turner and a good book. I am looking forward to reading more from Isaka.

Two old friends meeting for ramen watch in horror as a remote-controlled model-airplane bomb assassinates the prime minister of Japan. The police and media conduct a frenzied three-day hunt for the killer culminating in a weary standoff in a city park, while twenty years later, a historian details the high rate of accidental death among key eyewitnesses in the incident. Two decades after the fact, he reflects, nearly no one believes in the supposed assassin's guilt - but any hope of finding definitive answers died with the poor framed man. It's then that we reach the heart of the story, as we follow the wrongly-accused assassin, ex-deliveryman Masaharu Aoyagi, moment by moment through his three-day flight - from a college friend's warning that he's very imminently about to become the fall guy in a larger conspiracy to Aoyagi's woefully-underequipped everyman attempts to evade the law and public and prove his innocence.

I might note that without the Japan setting, "Remote Control" might seem a bit routine: an amiable underachiever has his true mettle tested by an impromptu battle against vast nebulous powers that forces him to a crossroads in his life and rouses him from his sleepwalk through existence. You can probably name any number of works with a similar premise (the Jamie Foxx film "Collateral," for one), but there're a couple qualities that somewhat distinguish "Remote Control." First, Aoyagi is exactly as outmatched by his predicament as you'd expect an untrained worker with no special skills to be; the true killers are, it seems, far beyond his reach, and his best outcome is only to prove somehow that he couldn't have been the perp. Aoyagi's primary weapon, then, isn't guns or fisticuffs but the manipulation of mass media, from outwitting the "security pods" that record video and audio on every street corner in this near-future to ensuring that his encounters with police are in front of cameras, where the cops are more reluctant to shoot a man dead. Indeed, rather unique to the thriller genre are the Japanese characters' consistently stunned reactions to how their cops are now not only brandishing guns in public but are willing to shoot both guilty and innocent in pursuit of their suspect; there are many quarters of the U.S. where that would be just another Tuesday. (Don't Google "Oscar Grant" unless you wish to be thoroughly dismayed by law enforcement and humanity.)

The book pinballs between four points of view - that of Aoyagi on the lam; that of Haruko Higuchi, Aoyagi's college sweeteart who dumped him for his passivity but now, as an urban mom married to a passionless salaryman, has second thoughts; and the former lovers' younger selves, as the sites in Sendai Aoyagi tours during his escape are cross-referenced with defining moments of his youth. Isaka's resolution of his divergent viewpoints is original and thematically consistent, as is a bit about an abandoned car that plays out effectively in the book's milieu of intrigue in the commonplace and Isaka's ruminations on the enduring value of old friendships even after the immediate ties fade. The meeting with the college buddy that kicks off the pursuit is another highlight; the reactions of the once-wisecracking, now-grim friend are exactly right, and the scenario ends with a rendition of a Beatles standard that's heartbreaking.

Let us now begin the airing of the grievances. First, the novel's translation is stiff, as is to be expected for any Japanese author in the U.S. market whose name isn't Haruki Murakami; still, I wish more effort had been expended to bring out each character's individual voice instead of having everyone speak solely in run-on declaratory sentences. A couple developments might stretch some readers' suspension of disbelief: halfway through his flight, Aoyagi receives help from a singularly unexpected quarter who adds some character to the proceedings but whose presence is a bit unbelievable; likewise, one might wonder if the method the true culprits chose to cover their tracks was really worth the investment and risk over digital means. A few too many folks are far too willing to risk jail time to help Japan's most wanted fugitive, and the novel's climax seems to come prematurely and is initially kind of muddled - though that doesn't stop it from being emotionally affecting in the end game. Finally, though Isaka works with the theme of friendship well, there's a lot of untapped potential in qualities like the book's nonlinear timeline and mass-communication fixation; the novel wants to make a bigger statement about the gulf between media images and reality and the untouchably vast forces controlling our lives but ultimately contents itself by simply observing that they exist.

"Remote Control" was published with a grant from the Japan Foundation, and I have to wonder why its translation was deemed such a priority. It's good but not great and contains little that is particularly culturally revelatory. Then again, though, why should every author by expected to write a big national statement? Why don't stories that're just tense and suspenseful instead of Important deserve a wider audience? Like Aoyagi himself, "Remote Control" doesn't quite follow through on its promise, but it is amiable company for a few hours, even managing a few genuinely memorable moments.

IMPORTANT NOTE: An unusual number of reviewers seem all too eager to reveal key plot points for this book. If you're arrived at my review unspoiled and have an inclination to read "Remote Control," go ahead and indulge it before others rob you of the book's surprises.