Kenji is a young man in Tokyo who offers nightlife tours to foreign visitors through the sex clubs and bars of Kabukicho. His new client, an American called Frank, hires him for three nights over the last days of December. Kenji finds Frank's behaviour odd, his stories inconsistent, and his manner unnervingly calm, and starts to suspect that he is connected to a recent murder. Ryū Murakami, no relation to Haruki, builds the dread through conversation and set pieces in the red-light district, and the book moves toward an explosion of violence.
Those who like Japanese crime fiction that is brutal and psychological will find it unsettling and fast. It is a short novel about alienation in modern Tokyo and about how little one person can know about another.
Balanced in tone; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Story Seeker. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 1997
- Language
- EN
