I first met Richard Roa in the fall of 1989. I was in the middle of researching "Tokyo Underworld" and someone had suggested I interview him because he knew the main character of the book, Nick Zapetti, and also because he worked for a time as a consultant to the "Toa-Sogo Kigyo," a real-estate/leisure outfit based in Roppongi, which was, in fact, a transmogrification of the infamous Tokyo gang, the "Tosei-kai," a yakuza organization which occupied another major part of the book.

My scheduled two-hour interview with Rick Roa metastasized into several lengthy Q&A session because the stories this man had to tell were so damned interesting, starting with the chilling tale he told of being caught in a Tokyo mob run clip joint and what he had to do to get his money back.

There was more--his hilarious tale of the American Train venture, his experiences as a bartender in the Ginza's most exclusive (and expensive) hostess club, his adventures with Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston in Japan. But, unfortunately, I could not use much of the material because it did not impact directly on the central thesis of Underworld, which dealt with the corrupt side of the U.S.-Japan relationship. But I always thought that it would make a good book one day, and lo and behold, here it is.

I'm sure readers will enjoy this book as much as I did.

Robert Whiting,
Kamakura, 2004
Author of "The Tokyo Underworld"

I first met Richard Roa in the fall of 1989. I was in the middle of researching "Tokyo Underworld" and someone had suggested I interview him because he knew the main character of the book, Nick Zapetti, and also because he worked for a time as a consultant to the "Toa-Sogo Kigyo," a real-estate/leisure outfit based in Roppongi, which was, in fact, a transmogrification of the infamous Tokyo gang, the "Tosei-kai," a yakuza organization which occupied another major part of the book.

My scheduled two-hour interview with Rick Roa metastasized into several lengthy Q&A session because the stories this man had to tell were so damned interesting, starting with the chilling tale he told of being caught in a Tokyo mob run clip joint and what he had to do to get his money back.

There was more--his hilarious tale of the American Train venture, his experiences as a bartender in the Ginza's most exclusive (and expensive) hostess club, his adventures with Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston in Japan. But, unfortunately, I could not use much of the material because it did not impact directly on the central thesis of Underworld, which dealt with the corrupt side of the U.S.-Japan relationship. But I always thought that it would make a good book one day, and lo and behold, here it is.

I'm sure readers will enjoy this book as much as I did.

Robert Whiting,
Kamakura, 2004
Author of "The Tokyo Underworld"

Warning: "Mad World Collide" is an outrageously zany sci-fi comedy that will laugh you into the funny farm.In year 2021, Robert Davichi thinks he has the worst computer job in the world--until a hacker threatens his life and starts bringing down corporations and governments. In the midst of this the military tries to conquer America via the Internet, a neurotic computer gains consciousness and starts communicating with evil harebrained aliens from afar--and the President finds an abundance of gas in his alimentary canal. Robert's life is thrown into cosmic chaos trying to solve one disaster after another. The story careens between Japan, America, and a spaceship orbiting near the moon."The book will entertain a wide range of readers" according to Peter Heyrman, a fiction writer who is published in "Twilight Zone" magazine. Peter, with a sense for the warped, edited "Mad Worlds Collide" stating it is "funny, and on the edge."