A gripping crime drama that’s rich with insights about modern Japan.
Investigators in Tokyo attempt to untangle a conspiracy scamming the elderly in Pronko’s crime novel.
Det. Ishii, a pugnacious female cop who works for the women’s crime task force, is contacted by Nobuko Ueno, an elderly woman who believes she’s the target of a sagi, or fraud, to bamboozle her out of her home, the only valuable property she possesses. Ishii organizes a sting to trap the perpetrators, but it goes terribly wrong, and Ueno is killed by an errant scooter. While Ueno’s death might have been an unfortunate accident, Ishii is convinced she was murdered. She joins forces with Det. Hiroshi Shimizu from the homicide department, a specialist in forensic accounting, to sort out the astonishingly complex conspiracy to prey upon the “greying population”—it’s a professional operation that’s as “as smooth and stable as a four-cylinder motorcycle engine.” The ring, led by Takuya, a maddeningly slippery criminal, takes whatever they can: pensions, life savings, even their marks’ homes. The victims are usually female, if only because they tend to live longer than their male counterparts, and often live in Shitamachi, an older, traditional, and cloistered section of eastern Tokyo. The author weaves a subtle and complicated tale with impressive skill, one in which multiple crimes seem completely disconnected but turn out to be pieces of one bleak puzzle. At the heart of this intellectually nuanced novel is the decay of old Japanese traditions, the social mores that discouraged the kind of predation that now afflicts the most vulnerable. Japanese culture is notably deferential to its elderly population, but, according to Det. Ishii, that veneration is increasingly a thing of yesteryear (“Japan’s tradition of respecting ancestors, teachers, parents—anyone older—goes back to Confucian scholars and feudal manners…but it’s all gone, isn’t it?”). Takuya is a personification of this nihilistic shift. His father abandoned him as a child and his mother died young; he was raised by a drunken grandfather who died when Takuya was only 16 years old, leaving him nothing but debt. While he’s a despicable grifter, it’s not hard to see how he could turn against elders who did so little for him; his psychological portrait is deftly painted by Pronko. Det. Hiroshi is damaged, as well; he’s also lost his parents, and he’s so stung by the loss that he neglects to use his inheritance. He’s not particularly traditional—he has a pregnant girlfriend, Ayana, and performs his professional duties with great diligence but little satisfaction. There’s something heroic about his decency, given that the societal structure that once supported such rectitude seems to be in a state of rapid decline.
Pronko’s knowledge of Japanese life is simply extraordinary—with painstaking care, he limns its shadowy contours and ambiguities. Tokyo emerges as a kind of protagonist all on its own, a melancholic and beleaguered character that somehow refuses to fully surrender its historic majesty. This is not an unchallenging read—the details of the conspiracy are many and dense, and readers will at times experience the same frustrated bewilderment as the detectives who struggle to unravel it. Pronko’s work amply rewards readers for their labor, however, with an absorbing drama conveyed with incisive intelligence.
A gripping crime drama that’s rich with insights about modern Japan.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781942410317
Page Count: 348
Publisher: Raked Gravel Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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