Mr. Moto Is So Sorry

Originally published in serial form in the Saturday Evening Post from July 2 to August 13, 1938, Mr. Moto Is So Sorry was first published in book form in 1938. It is the fourth of six Mr. Moto novels and can also be found in the omnibus Mr. Moto's Three Aces published in 1939.

The Moto novels are spy fiction and adventure novels set in the Orient, which in the 1930s was still considered mysterious and exotic. Mr. Moto is an Imperial spy for the Japanese government and often has to deal with people who accidentally get involved in his work.

Marquand had traveled to China in order to gather information and atmosphere for his Moto novels as Millicent Bell, Marquand’s biographer states, “In Mr. Moto is So Sorry, Marquand went back once more to his memories of 1934, and his hero’s journey duplicates Marquand’s own arrival in China, although there is considerably more melodramatic incident along the fictional journey.”

Read more about Mr. Moto Is So Sorry:  Plot Overview, Characters, Themes