Japanese Crime Fiction

Ken Hideyoshi is the new guy in Halawa Correctional Institute. He’s tough looking, a hard case. His cellmate is Cal—the mute tattoo artist of the prison who murdered his own wife. Ken, already inked with a gang symbol and a Japanese emblem, eventually asks Cal to create an elaborate tattoo on his back, in kanji script, of Musashi’s Book of the Void.

Newly reinstated to the homicide division and transferred to a precinct in Tokyo, Inspector Iwata is facing superiors who don't want him there and is assigned a recalcitrant partner, Noriko Sakai, who'd rather work with anyone else. After the previous detective working the case killed himself, Iwata and Sakai are assigned to investigate the slaughter of an entire family, a brutal murder with no clear motive or killer.

In the wake of World War II, the Allied forces charged 28 Japanese men with crimes against humanity. Correspondents at the Tokyo trial thought the evidence fell most heavily on 10 of the accused. In December 1948, five of these defendants were hanged, while four received sentences of life in prison. The tenth was a brilliant philosopher-patriot named Okawa Shumei. His story proved strangest of all. Among all the political and military leaders on trial, Okawa was the lone civilian.

リヴ・ルケはパードラのスーパー「ネットー」で店員として働いていた。 彼女は、この街にも、自分自身にも、仕事にも、人生にもうんざりしていた。客が誰であるか見なくてもわかるようになっていた。 近所に住む客の殆どや彼らの買い物の習慣を把握していた。 しかしある日、客の一人が彼女の過去、そしてあの運命の日を思い出させるような品物を購入した。それは母親を殺したガス爆発から兄を救った日のことだ。 その客は、あの人......