Japan

The novel opens with the abduction of a young woman, Shindo—a butch, menswear-wearing, expert fighter—who is taken away by the yakuza, a crime syndicate. After turning several henchmen into minced meat (it’s very Kill Bill), and nearly raped and brutalized herself, she’s given permission to live, providing that she agrees to work as the bodyguard and driver of Shoko, the only child of the gang’s leader. Shoko, who’s around Shindo’s age, is a revelation: doll-like, dressed in strange, old clothes (it’s the early 1980s), a student at a women’s junior college that is more like a finishing school, with courses in French pastries. And while Shindo misses her old life delivering for a florist, she and Shokow slowly begin to hit it off as Shindo ferries her back and forth from school. Shoko’s life, it turns out, is no picnic, including her upcoming marriage to a complete and utter sadist. How the two women manage to escape from this uber-violent world, confront the patriarchy, and create an alternate existence is as thrilling as it is fast paced. This novella was nominated for a 2021 Mystery Writers of Japan Award

Some mysteries go deep into the lives of just a few characters. Others go wide, spreading the investigation across a community. Keigo Higashino, in his Kyoichiro Kaga police procedurals, manages to do both. Here a businessman is found dead on Tokyo’s famous Nihonbashi bridge, a knife in his chest. But he was attacked elsewhere and somehow managed to stagger to the bridge, dying beneath the statue of a kirin, a winged beast of Japanese mythology. Hours later, a young man is in a car accident nearby—he was killed trying to avoid the police—and the businessman’s wallet is found on his person. Sounds like a wrap, doesn’t it? Except we’re in the hands of Detective Kaga, and despite pressure from the higher ups, he isn’t ready to sign off on the case. Kaga investigates the lives and families of everyone involved, unpacking their secrets, holding them up to the light, seeking connections. Eventually, the narrative opens up, like one of the many origami cranes that end up being so important to the story. It’s a delight to again encounter the mysterious but brilliant Detective Kaga.

The Night of Baba Yaga

A Death in Tokyo