A femme fatale asks mystery buff and amateur sleuth Ken Tanaka to take on a case for her--which he does on a lark--but he soon finds himself involved in a murder in Los Angeles's Little Tokyo.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Furutani gives a short course on Japanese-American culture on the West Coast in this pedantic, occasionally poetic debut. Unemployed computer programmer Ken Tanaka rents an office and fixes it up to look like a detective's office in order to host an L.A. Mystery Club weekend. When a woman comes in to hire him, he goes along, believing her to be a participant playing a joke. After she leaves and he realizes she wasn't role-playing, he feels obligated to retrieve the package she paid him to get. He picks up the package from international businessman Susumu Matsuda and gives it to his girlfriend, Mariko, for safekeeping. However, Matsuda is soon hacked to death, and Ken fleetingly becomes a suspect. Despite repeated cautions by Mariko and the insensitive detective in charge, Ken, who solves Mystery Club puzzles faster than other members, determines to find out why the man was killed and by whom. But once he is beaten up by Japanese gangsters, it becomes clear that real crime is less organized and more complicated than the game variety. Furutani packs so much history of the Japanese in America and mentions their current social problems so frequently that the mystery in this slim novel seems an afterthought.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
The contrived premise for Furutani's first novel is that fortysomething, unemployed Ken Tanaka--a dedicated member of the L.A. Mystery Club--sets himself up as a make-believe private-eye (even renting an office, printing business cards, etc.) as part of a mystery-weekend game he's planning. Naturally, a passerby mistakes him for the real thing. She's blond bombshell Rita Newly, who hires eager, dumb Ken to pick up a package (embarrassing photos, supposedly) from a blackmailing Japanese businessman named Matsuda. Ken gets the package--which contains valuable papers, not photos; Matsuda gets gruesomely murdered. So Ken, a suspect, goes sleuthing, trying to locate the Little Tokyo stripper who was Matsuda's final date while tangling with some violent mobsters (who want the package). It would take tremendous style and atmosphere, of course, to transform this familiar, short-story-ish plot into a satisfying novel. Unfortunately, while charmless narrator Ken occasionally strains for humor, the filler here (except for a few persuasive glimpses into the Japanese-American community) is consistently unengaging: earnest exchanges between Ken and girlfriend Mariko, a recovering alcoholic; Mariko's first speech at an AA meeting; and bland musings on everything from anti-Asian racism and Kurosawa movies to Buddhist carnivals and Japanese woodblocks. A wobbly debut. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, an authentic Asian American voice in mysteries!,
By hobnob@msn.com (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Death in Little Tokyo: A Ken Tanaka Mystery (Hardcover)
As an Asian American mystery lover, I have waited a long time for a mystery series by and about Asian Americans. Finally it is here, and it was worth the wait! Dale Furutani has done an excellent job with Ken Tanaka, a regular guy who happens to be a dealing with a lot of issues many of us face - the downsizing of the corporate America, male-female relationships in the '90s, and racial discrimination in a supposedly color-blind world. Oh, and then there's the murder!
Despite the weightiness of some of these topics, this is not a heavy-handed or depressing book at all. In fact the style is very clever and witty, and the plot moves trippingly along. It is not too violent, but not a cozy either - I think it would appeal to fans of many genres of mystery, as well as those who do not normally read mystery novels. Highly recommended! Laura Marple
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pretend to be a detective and you could get burned!!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Death in Little Tokyo: A Ken Tanaka Mystery (Hardcover)
Meet Ken Tanaka, Japanese American, Vietnam Vet, recently unemployed, member of the Los Angeles Mystery Club, sweet on a woman 10 years his junior, and a down right nice guy. Ken opens a detective agency, not to solve crimes, but as a prop for the mystery crime he is creating for his month as leader of the LA Mystery Club, a sporadic weekend group that solves made up crimes for fun. Ken Tanaka even goes to such lengths that he has his name etched on the glass door of his pretend office as another prop to impress the other club members. But in LA pretending to be a detective can be dangerous. Tanaka attracts some shady LA characters who refuse no as an answer when searching for a slick LA detective. In less than 20 pages, Ken finds himself encompassed with a gory murder and a scary, rough Japanese crime gang.
Mr. Furutani's success with DEATH IN LITTLE TOKYO is multi-fold. First he is tremendously successful in this first novel of establishing a likable and believable protagonist in Ken Tanaka and a handful of memorable other characters to include a spry elderly Japanese woman who was a prisoner in the Japanese Concentration Camps during World War II. Second, Furutani, introduces us to Little Tokyo, an ethnic area of Los Angeles that is rich with history, yet ever-changing like the rest of the world. He also has created an amateur detective series that will be long lived and enjoyable and is to par with other famous gumshoes like Kinsey Millhone, Kate Martinelli, Harry Bosch, and Stephanie Plum.
While Mr. Furutani seems to have all the perfect ingredients for a successful mystery, he also has included some thought provoking ideas which seem to be woven directly beneath the subconscious surface of the plot. DEATH OF LITTLE TOKYO, through the eyes and words of Ken Tanaka, takes a poignant and honest look at racism in Los Angeles, America, and even Japan. He uses the history of the Japanese Concentration Camps (seen vividly in Guterson's SNOW FALLING ON CEDAR) to tell both a story, but also to remind each of us of some of the selfish examples of racism in our immediate pasts. Furutani shares numerous episodes of racism committed not only by Caucasian citizens, but by almost every ethnic group residing in America today.
Dale Furutani will have a long relationship with mystery readers because he is a master storyteller, but also because he honestly has something important to say about the social issues of today. All this in one mystery book! Good job Dale Furutani and welcome to the world of successful writers-you have earned your seat!
Carlton Brow
5.0 out of 5 stars
1996 Agatha nominee,
By A Customer
This review is from: Death in Little Tokyo: A Ken Tanaka Mystery (Hardcover)
Death in Little Tokyo is a nominee for an Agatha award as the best first mystery novel of 1996
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