The Curved Jewels — Tom Bradley

In THE CURVED JEWELS, the Crown Princess of Japan gets tired of her living-death in the Imperial Palace, and escapes with the help of a couple of shady American expatriates. The world knows this woman as a brilliant linguist and career diplomat who somehow got coerced into marrying the grandson of Hirohito. The novel shows how that might have happened."Tom Bradley's formidable prose evokes the work of two other towering Toms. Like Tom Pynchon, Bradley possesses the power to wield language like a stun gun; but he tempers his cynicism with genuine affection for his characters, a la Tom Robbins.” Mainichi Daily News.