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Rating: 
Summary: Dashiel Hammett meets William Gibson
Review: great read. neo/retro pulp fiction. engaging characters. lush environment. the seedy underbelly of modern Japan was never so enjoyable. only negative was the author's overzealous desire to paint too elaborate a picture at times. i realize he lives in Japan, but some descriptions of the scenes ran on a bit.
Rating: 
Summary: appealing tough guy, good story
Review: I read this based on the website recommendation of Isaac Adamson, the author of the Billy Chaka mysteries which also are set in Japan. The main character, Mori, is believable and appealing, and the reader also cares about (or is fascinated by)the many other charcaters around which the story turns - Angel the tough girl who proves tougher even than the yakuza, Sonada the genius videogame developer, Uno the fledgling private eye, Mitchell the videogame player and investment broker who believes in Sonada's company despite everything, the awful but powerful Wolf who seeks to restore his lost honor, and numerous others.
This is a fast-paced, enjoyable mystery, and the author effectively has the reader walking, running, and driving the streets of the Japan it portrays. I look forward to reading the author's earlier two Mori mysteries.
Rating:
Summary: appealing tough guy, good story
Review: I read this based on the website recommendation of Isaac Adamson, the author of the Billy Chaka mysteries which also are set in Japan. The main character, Mori, is believable and appealing, and the reader also cares about (or is fascinated by)the many other charcaters around which the story turns - Angel the tough girl who proves tougher even than the yakuza, Sonada the genius videogame developer, Uno the fledgling private eye, Mitchell the videogame player and investment broker who believes in Sonada's company despite everything, the awful but powerful Wolf who seeks to restore his lost honor, and numerous others.
This is a fast-paced, enjoyable mystery, and the author effectively has the reader walking, running, and driving the streets of the Japan it portrays. I look forward to reading the author's earlier two Mori mysteries.
Rating:
Summary: Elmore Leonard in Tokyo
Review: Tokyo-based British writer and financial manager Tasker's third novel to feature PI Kazuo Mori (following Silent Thunder and Bhudda Kiss, neither of which I've read) is a fast-paced insider's trip through modern Japanese society. Following a little job that gets him in bad with a nasty yakuza guy, Mori gets embroiled in a complex case at the behest of the girlfriend of a high-level government official who dies in murky circumstances. The novel cuts between Mori's investigation, the yakuza's various assignments, and a British financial analyst who's staked everything on a video-game company that's tanking. Mori's method is to call upon friends and sources to tap official databases while he uses one of his many fake name cards (kind of like business cards in the US) to demand information from people. The thriller's subtext says a lot about the innate respect for authority in Japan, and the rotten hollowness of authority. Throughout, the police, ministries, and corporations are derided as corrupt and greedy institutions bleeding the common man dry. None of it is very subtle, but Mori's trip through the seedier side of Tokyo and its drab suburbs is sure to open the eyes of anyone who thinks Japan is all teahouses and geisha girls. Eventually everything gets ties up nicely as the yakuza comes gunning for Mori and the British analyst's woes tie in to Mori's investigation. While the setting is pretty interesting, the characters aren't particularly subtle. Mori is a classic old-fashioned rumpled, wearily cynical PI from well within the Western detective tradition. Middle-aged, poorly dressed, and with a love for traditional jazz and constant ingestion of various foodstuffs, he's somewhat reminiscent of the title character in John Harvey's excellent Charley Resnik series. The yakuza guy dresses loud, loves the old traditions, and is bound and has bouts of extreme violence. The women throughout are mostly sexual objects, and even though some of them are "strong," they're still not particularly well-rounded. The sum effect is rather akin to reading one of Elmore Leonard's better novels-reasonably entertaining, but not anything that'll stay with you long after you put it down.
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