The Bitter Pit

of the Cherry 

(Tentative Publication: 2025)

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By Ryan Plut

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Page count as yet unknown.

5.5" x 8.5" Trade Paperback.

 

February 1947, and the World War has been over for sixteen months. The Ellerman Shipping Line has been bringing soldiers from all over the world home to Britain, or to their Commonwealth homelands.

 

A nearly fifty-year-old ship with a full load of scrap iron waits in British Columbia, Canada, auctioned off as surplus. British Merchant Navy Captain Reginald Wallace is recommended to undertake a special mission: deliver this ship safely to the winning bidder, where cargo and ship will be scrapped in Japan.

 

Mystical Japan! He’s never been there and is intrigued. Eager to see this exotic country, he accepts and travels to meet the ship. But then the first problem crops up: he’s also forced to carry hundreds of Japanese “enemy alien internees” being repatriated to their homeland. Because of rumours that an attempt might be made to scuttle it during the voyage, the new Japanese owner has hired a plain-clothes detective for security, and also massively insured the ship and its cargo.

 

Now in Japan, the various crew members are paid off, and board steamers for home. The captain remains, awaiting a scheduled ocean liner to take him home to Britain. But it is April, and the cherry trees are in full bloom. A small group comprised of the detective, the captain, the wireless operator and his wife the translator, take this opportunity to go sightseeing, and so travel to ancient and beautiful Kyoto – untouched by the war – for the Sakura Matsuri, the annual cherry blossom festival.

 

Reggie encounters Yukiko, a young woman surviving in this damaged economy as a prostitute. They are attracted to each other. But no one has warned them about the Yakuza, Japan’s dangerous and secretive gangster cult, whose commonplace methods are kidnapping, extortion, and outright murder. The Yakuza do not have the ship for which they had paid, and kidnap them for their help in finding it. But Captain Wallace suspects that once it’s found, their continued existence will no longer be required!