Customer Reviews

Samurai Boogie

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read this based on the website recommendation of Isaac Adamson, the author of the Billy Chaka mysteries which also are set in Japan. The main character, Mori, is believable and appealing, and the reader also cares about (or is fascinated by)the many other charcaters around which the story turns - Angel the tough girl who proves tougher even than the yakuza, Sonada the genius videogame developer, Uno the fledgling private eye, Mitchell the videogame player and investment broker who believes in Sonada's company despite everything, the awful but powerful Wolf who seeks to restore his lost honor, and numerous others.
This is a fast-paced, enjoyable mystery, and the author effectively has the reader walking, running, and driving the streets of the Japan it portrays. I look forward to reading the author's earlier two Mori mysteries.

Tokyo-based British writer and financial manager Tasker's third novel to feature PI Kazuo Mori (following Silent Thunder and Bhudda Kiss, neither of which I've read) is a fast-paced insider's trip through modern Japanese society. Following a little job that gets him in bad with a nasty yakuza guy, Mori gets embroiled in a complex case at the behest of the girlfriend of a high-level government official who dies in murky circumstances. The novel cuts between Mori's investigation, the yakuza's various assignments, and a British financial analyst who's staked everything on a video-game company that's tanking. Mori's method is to call upon friends and sources to tap official databases while he uses one of his many fake name cards (kind of like business cards in the US) to demand information from people. The thriller's subtext says a lot about the innate respect for authority in Japan, and the rotten hollowness of authority. Throughout, the police, ministries, and corporations are derided as corrupt and greedy institutions bleeding the common man dry. None of it is very subtle, but Mori's trip through the seedier side of Tokyo and its drab suburbs is sure to open the eyes of anyone who thinks Japan is all teahouses and geisha girls. Eventually everything gets ties up nicely as the yakuza comes gunning for Mori and the British analyst's woes tie in to Mori's investigation.

While the setting is pretty interesting, the characters aren't particularly subtle. Mori is a classic old-fashioned rumpled, wearily cynical PI from well within the Western detective tradition. Middle-aged, poorly dressed, and with a love for traditional jazz and constant ingestion of various foodstuffs, he's somewhat reminiscent of the title character in John Harvey's excellent Charley Resnik series. The yakuza guy dresses loud, loves the old traditions, and is bound and has bouts of extreme violence. The women throughout are mostly sexual objects, and even though some of them are "strong," they're still not particularly well-rounded. The sum effect is rather akin to reading one of Elmore Leonard's better novels-reasonably entertaining, but not anything that'll stay with you long after you put it down.

great read. neo/retro pulp fiction. engaging characters. lush environment. the seedy underbelly of modern Japan was never so enjoyable. only negative was the author's overzealous desire to paint too elaborate a picture at times. i realize he lives in Japan, but some descriptions of the scenes ran on a bit.

Then this book is worth reading! :) That's how I was introduced to Peter Tasker & I love his books! Samurai Boogie is excellent!

I've lived in Japan, although not Tokyo, and the thing about this book was the way Japan was brought to life for me. Noodle and yakitori shops and creaky wooden buildings and foreign girls working in Hostess Bars. I don't usually read crime novels, but this one was okay.

Mori, the main character is a hard boiled Private Eye, with more connections than a telephone exchange, chasing down and being chased down by Japanese gangsters, young wanna-be Private Eyes and some just weird characters.

But the one thing I did notice, like blues being played by a white man, is that it doesn't have the soul or the real pathos I've read in Japanese (and Asian) writers. It is a good book and it has pathos, but something sneaking inside just tells me that it was a westerner in Japan who wrote the book (which it was.) Maybe it's the descriptions of things that the author has seen through western eyes, and really wants to elaborate on that does it for me. For the non-Japanese lived reader, some of the quirky things may or may not make sense, but to me that's what made the book good, but also over did it a bit.

It's hard to explain, but I still liked it and it'll got together with my other books in my Japanese book collection.

Simply put, the book is an enjoyable work of pulp fiction. There is always a certain degree of suspension of disbelief necessary for such a story, and while there are some ways in which the story asks too much of its readers, the whole is never compromised.

Bad news first: My only real point of contention is the strange portrayal of the video games and the industry's workings. This is where I really had trouble suspending disbelief. Fortunately, it didn't detract enough from the core of the story for me even though I am very serious about my fun with video games. The portrayal is full of points of what must be purposeful anachronism because they would not have been excusable even in 1999 when the book was written. This may be a minor spoiler, so please skip to the next paragraph if you want to go in totally cold, but there is a part of the story that is built on the notion that video game developers are anonymous, hidden from the public for some reason. Even in 1999, I knew names like Miyamoto, Kojima, Iwatani, Carmack, and even Boon, so I had a great deal of trouble reconciling this point.

On a positive note, the author's switching the point-of-view frequently, alternating between 3 major players, leads to a brisk, well-paced tale. Our protagonist is the classic detective, and that's that. His name is Mori and he's a detective. He's deeper than that of course, but that's all the information you will really need. He is exactly as he should be with the right set of quirks and nuances of character. This familiarity allows you to jump right into the story from the get-go. The other two characters through whom we learn the story do provide a very interesting difference in content and narrative. Owing to this approach of changing focus, things never really become stagnant, and it creates a sense of anticipation when you see a break in the page indicating a switch.

The author has a few aspects of his style that may or may not be considered grammatically correct, but stylistically, they work just fine once you get used to them, so don't be put off by complaints of editing and the like. Of course, there were a few spelling errors (No, of course I'm not counting British spelling as an error, so don't worry about that), but there was never a point in which I was ever confused about the meaning or flow of a sentence, paragraph, or page.

Overall, it's a worthwhile read and I would recommend it for anyone, but most enthusiastically for public transit commuters. The action moves along nicely and the frequent shifts in focus always give you a good point to leave off as you exit the train or bus. As a Sunday afternoon read, it doesn't work quite as well, but that's not to say that it's not worth reading either way.

the editing was terrible -erm was it edited? The poor structure and cliched story telling made this book unbearable beyond chapter 1.