ADAM NICHOLS finds why the 'czar' of Soviet Cold War spying has headed East

MARTIN Cruz Smith knows a lot about the world. Not surprisingly, his reputation is as a specialist in the intricacies of Cold War Russia's secretive world of spying. Gorky Park is one of the best known tales of the USSR before the collapse of Communism, the freezing backdrop of a murder tale hiding only thinly the subterfuge and cover-ups of probably the world's biggest undercover intelligence.

Most of his other titles share the Soviet theme. And then he shocks all those who try to stereotype him.

Tokyo Station, his latest novel out this month, swaps the red of Moscow for the rising sun of the Far East, and it's written with the same certain knowledge of the place that he puts into his stories of Russia.

"For a start, it's not a detective story and it's not in Russia, and that makes it very different," says Cruz.

"I suppose I just really wanted to do a book about Japan. I was particularly intrigued about the part of Japan called Asakusa, which seemed so different to the stereotype of Tokyo."

The story revolves around Harry Niles, the abandoned son of US missionaries who has spent his life in the area, a kind of Tokyo underworld which, at that time, was inhabited by brothels and criminals.

As Japan prepares for the attack on Pearl Harbour, Harry is seen by all as a product of the US and a friend of the Japanese, both feared and respected. His tangled love life and desperate attempts to catch the last trip out of Japan to the States is complicated by Ishigami, the soldier crazed by the need to get revenge for a challenge set by Harry years before.

"I was interested inwhy the Japanese would do something so suicidal as take on both the US and Britain," says Cruz.

"And I'm always interested in somebody else's interpretation of history.

"We can't just say 'we were right, they were wrong,' the world is a lot more complicated than that and I wanted to look at what the build up to the attack on Pearl Harbour was like for people actually in Japan.

"I think it's interesting to see that through an American who has never been to America, but who is not accepted by the Japanese. It shows the enormous suspicion."

Cruz's writing clearly demonstrates the extent of research that must have been carried out, including trips to the Far East.

"I always go to the places I'm writing about," he says.

"I have been to Japan twice, although the remnants of pre-war Tokyo are hard to find because it was bombed flat.

"My first impression was that it's very cold culture-wise, but then in the evening all these lights were turned on around the streets and the people seemed very satisfied, happy faces in these little bars, and I liked it very much."

Tokyo Station concentrates on a seedy side of Tokyo, a side that, says Cruz, was clearly evident in the time about which he writes.

"Before the war prostitution was legal," he says.

"There were large areas given over to it. Sex was an ordinary part of Japanese life, married men were regarded with more respect if they kept a beautiful mistress and part of the book is trying to reflect that."

Although Tokyo Station explores a new country and culture, Cruz promises he will be returning to what his reputation is built on, although he knows the Soviet world he has written about in the past is now virtually unrecognisable in modern day Russia.

"I certainly did not expect Russia was going to change so quickly," he says.

"I knew it was happening, but the pace of it has taken me by surprise."

Tokyo Station (Macmillan, £16.99)

Updated: 09:43 Wednesday, October 30, 2002