Crichton's novels Rising Sun (1992) and Disclosure (1992) are about intrigue in the industrial sector of modern America.

Rising Sun, narrated by a young police detective, focuses on the murder of a woman during a celebrity-studded bash celebrating the recent opening of a new high-rise office in downtown Los An geles. The subsequent investigation into the murder, which involves the Japanese businessmen who own the building and who may be covering up for the guilty party, must proceed at a break-neck pace before all of the evidence can be destroyed or doctored. The detective is teamed with a newly-retired police captain who was the department's expert on the local Japanese business community, which is portrayed as a business culture having its own code of conduct, one that has a reputation for particular ruthlessness and for contempt of non-Japanese.

Along with his mentor, the young detective very nearly becomes...