Japan

The Puzzle Box by Danielle Trussoni

By Vicki Weisfeld

10 October, 2024

How you feel about puzzles will likely colour your reaction to this new thriller from Danielle Trussoni. It’s a follow-on to her well-received book from last year, The Puzzle Master. I love puzzles, and at first I believed I’d found the perfect read. Mike Brink…

Kindle Print Reviews

Geisha Confidential by Mark Coggins

By Vicki Weisfeld

1 March, 2024

Mark Coggins’s new Tokyo-based crime novel, Geisha Confidential, features middle-aged San Francisco-based private investigator August Riordan, who has appeared in a number of previous books in this award-winning series. Read this fast-paced story, and you’ll barely have time to feel the jet lag. Almost as…

eBook Kindle Print Reviews

Shitamachi Scam by Michael Pronko

By Sonja van der Westhuizen

1 February, 2024

The squeamish yet diligent Detective Hiroshi Shimizu returns in Shitamachi Scam, the sixth instalment of Tokyo-based Michael Pronko’s crime novel series. In 2022, Azabu Getaway transported readers to the cosmopolitan Azabu district, but this time the action takes place in an older, more traditional Shitamachi…

Features

Small-town Japan and small-town America as crime novel settings

By crimefictionlover

1 February, 2023

The American crime author Lea O’Harra has lived in small-town America and small-town Japan, and has used these experiences in her Inspector Inoue novels as well as her latest book, Dead Reckoning. Here she joins us to talk about the parallels, the differences and the…

Kindle Print Reviews

Five Decembers by James Kestrel

By RoughJustice

11 November, 2021

Hawaii, late November 1941, and the United States will soon be drawn in to World War II when Japan bombs the fleet at Pearl Harbour. Police detective Joe McGrady has just finished his shift and is winding down in a bar, contemplating a weekend with…

Kindle Print Reviews

Tokyo Zangyo by Michael Pronko

By nagaisayonara

9 September, 2021

Zangyo – or overtime – is what keeps the corporate wheels turning in Japan, and American author Michael Pronko’s newest novel, the fourth in the Detective Hiroshi series, examines the cost of this pressure to succeed. When a top-level manager at Senden Central is found…

iBook Kindle Print Reviews

Tokyo Redux by David Peace

By Sonja van der Westhuizen

3 August, 2021

It’s been almost 12 years since Occupied City, the second instalment in David Peace’s Tokyo trilogy, was published. For fans of this ambitious author it’s been a long wait, but in Tokyo Redux Peace delivers a humdinger which, according to the author, was in part…

iBook Kindle Print Reviews

Lady Joker, Volume 1 by Kaoru Takamura

By nagaisayonara

14 May, 2021

Translated by Allison Markin Powell and Marie Iida — Lady Joker, Kaoru Takamura’s 1997 epic and the first of her novels to be translated into English, is part crime fiction and part social commentary. The publication in Japan came at a turning point in the…

Crime Fiction Lover

The Puzzle Box by Danielle Trussoni

Geisha Confidential by Mark Coggins

Shitamachi Scam by Michael Pronko

Small-town Japan and small-town America as crime novel settings

Five Decembers by James Kestrel

Tokyo Zangyo by Michael Pronko

Tokyo Redux by David Peace

Lady Joker, Volume 1 by Kaoru Takamura

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