Mynton, Henry

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MYNTON, Henry

PERSONAL: Male. Education: Attended Harvard University.

ADDRESSES: Home—VT and Asia. Agent—c/o Author Mail, William Morrow, 10 East 53rd St., 7th Floor, New York, NY 10022.

CAREER: Former owner of a business in Tokyo, Japan; currently full-time freelance writer.

WRITINGS:

The Pachinko Woman (novel), William Morrow (New

York, NY), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Henry Mynton is the pen name of an American author who has lived in Asia for over thirty-five years. After graduating from college, he started his own business in Tokyo, but he now writes full-time. Mynton's debut novel, The Pachinko Woman, tells the story of Helim Kim, a Korean businesswoman entangled in an international gambling scheme. She plots to undermine the North Korean government by upsetting its control of Japanese pachinko parlors, which provide a large source of laundered money for North Korea. During her quest, Kim encounters a string of villains, including an East German killer, a North Korean dissident, FBI spies, and a corrupt Japanese businessman. She also struggles to keep her boyfriend, a California lawyer, out of danger.

Several reviewers found the novel's plot challenging, but also praised Mynton's effort as a whole. As Booklist contributor David Pitt commented, "Those who prefer to know exactly what's going on at every step may give up in frustration, but patience is rewarded for those who persevere." Likewise, a Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that while Mynton's novel has "so many story lines at work that the narrative has no central core," The Pachinko Woman "has moments of compelling action and flashes of character depth."