THE BOOKS

Acclaim & Reviews

Full Review:

“This action-packed saga follows Torn Sagara—biracial lawyer, motorcycle maniac, and flawed ladies’ man—on a quest to stop a series of mysterious attacks on his inventor client. As the story escalates into murder and international intrigue, the reader is in for a wild ride from Tokyo to Alaska to the Russian Far East. Fans of Barry Eisler and Barry Lancet will want to jump right in!”

Full Review:

“Bottled Lightning is a novel about Torn Sagara, a biracial lawyer practicing law at the Tokyo office of a global law firm. Events quickly overtake Torn as he attempts to protect his family, his beautiful and brainy client, Saya Brooks, and her paradigm-shifting lightning generation invention from mysterious dark forces threatening them all. The novel takes the reader through the terrific twists and turns into which Torn is thrown but to which he reacts with remarkable effectiveness even though much of the time he is grappling with an unknown foe. Through it all, the author, L. M. Weeks, demonstrates a keen knowledge of modern Tokyo, Japanese language and culture, the modern energy and climate dilemmas, motorcycle riding, intellectual property law and cross-border transactions, and the life of a partner at a global law firm, which he uses to take the reader on a thrilling, and yet believable, roller-coaster ride that doesn’t let up until the last line. I recommend Bottled Lightning to anyone looking for a great international legal thriller.”

Full Review:

“Bottled Lightning is the debut novel by L. M. Weeks. It’s an international legal/murder thriller which starts off with one hell of a motorcycle chase scene through a tight roadway loop in central Tokyo. Torn Sagara is the protagonist who is a successful lawyer who has worked in the international technology market, and he’s giving a spontaneous unplanned ride to Saya Brooks, the inventor of a new lightning generation and energy storage technology. The invention of “bottled lightning” threatens to make the fossil fuel business obsolete, and that’s the issue that drives most of the story line. What starts out as a fun motorcycle ride suddenly becomes one in which Torn and Saya’s life are in danger. Torn assumes that the expert drivers, motorcyclists, and shooters are aiming to kill him, not understanding the desperation that some companies had for cancelling the new technology.

The story line presents multiple complications for Torn starting with a very well-written erotic sex scene between Torn and Mayumi Ino, who is not his wife. Torn and his wife, Yukie Sagara, had been separated for two years. He knew the marriage was over but she refused to grant him a divorce. Their two children, Sean and Sophia, are caught between the very different needs of their parents. Torn manages to the make his impossible private life even more complicated when he finds himself falling in love with his client, Saya.
As the story unfolds, there are various companies involved in old and new technologies, and the controlling people in those companies have large stakes involved in the future of those enterprises. The story starts in Tokyo, but skirts off to Alaska and Russia. There are big cultural issues involved among Japanese, Japanese-Americans, and Americans.

In short, this story is a fast ride of international intrigue, one that will keep you spellbound. The book is due for a release in the second week of June 2022. This novel gets my strongest recommendation.”

Full Review:

“Much of the action in L. M. Weeks’s dark thriller, Bottled Lightning, occurs in Japan and the Russian Far East. Having lived and worked as a fish biologist in this vast, untamed, and largely unknown region for many decades, I can attest to the accuracy of Weeks’s cinematic descriptions of some of the darker aspects of what the author calls the ‘Wild Wild East.’ I can confirm too from my travels to Tokyo that the author paints a vivid multi-colored picture, reminiscent of the original Blade Runner, of the largest metropolis in the world. The book also introduces us to several closed universes, including ruthless but sophisticated yakuza, Japanese police practices, Japanese-American biracial children, experiencing earthquakes in modern Japan high rises, and revolutionary lightning generation technology and its potential impact on the world’s energy industries. Most important are the realistic characters into which Weeks lovingly, and meticulously, imperfections and all, breathes life so they are not just cardboard figures on a screen. This is truly a BOOK WORTH READING!”

Full Review:

“L. M. Weeks’s Bottled Lightning tells the story of a technology lawyer leading the Tokyo office of a global law firm and representing clients in their highest value engagements, in this case a client resisting deadly opposition to her world-saving lightning-on-demand invention. It’s a multi-layered and fast-paced legal thriller, that is both engaging and authentic because of Weeks’s comprehensive knowledge of international law practice, Japan, technology, and more. I highly recommend this book to anyone wishing to be transported to a fantastic world that feels so real.”

Full Review:

“The heart of this fast-paced and enjoyable novel is its protagonist, Tornait Masao Sagara. Also known as Torn. He’s a high-powered lawyer based in Tokyo. Half American-half Japanese, a passionate motorcyclist, a man with a complicated family and romantic background, Torn’s life is turned upside-down when he and his beautiful client are almost killed by a motorcycle gang during a high-speed chase through the streets of Tokyo. The twists and turns of this novel are engaging and cinematic. The behind-the-scenes details about life in upper-class corporate Japan are fascinating. Well done! I can highly recommend L. M. Weeks’s Bottled Lightning.”

Full Review:

“The catalyst for this fast-moving, Tokyo-set thriller is the invention of a way to chemically produce lightning, which creates an enormously efficient way to generate electricity. As in John Marr’s recent The One and The Passengers, for which this is a good readalike, the human side of the technology overtakes the invention itself, complicating relationships and putting all involved in peril. When the book opens, the danger hits the road, literally, as lawyer Torn Sagara and his client Saya Brooks, the lightning box’s inventor, are attacked on a Tokyo highway, first by men on motorcycle and then by others in a car. Were these separate attacks? Was Torn or Saya the intended target? All the while, Weeks (like Torn, born in Alaska and now a lawyer in Japan) creates an immersive view of the strange life of his protagonist, a half-Japanese, half-American man who shrugs off the slights and outright discrimination he faces from fellow Japanese. Readers will also find themselves voyeurs of the mental gymnastics it takes for the lawyer to sustain two affairs and even start a third before the book is over (physical gymnastics may also come to mind as Torn and one of his mostly ignored girlfriends take advantage of an airplane bathroom). As well as taking on many interesting details of Japanese culture, including its funeral rites, by the end readers will also be well acquainted with the flawed but lovable Torn and will hope for more visits to his between-worlds life.”