Samurai Boogie [Paperback]

Peter Tasker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2001

Kazuo Mori, PI, is struggling to make ends meet. When he falls in with a prostitute called Angel, he is soon struggling for survival in a vicious game that has the Yakuza and Japan’s two major computer game makers as players. And on top of everything else, there is the rival agency that’s just set up and is undercutting him on every job. The only thing to do is set up in partnership with the eager young student who is taking his business. And it’s an arrangement with some unexpected bonuses.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Let's take this out on a limb. Let's say Tasker's third novel (after Silent Thunder and Buddha Kiss) set in urban Japan in the 1990s is one of the best hardboiled detective novels ever written. Let's say Tasker himself is one of the smartest writers in the genre: book smart, in the remarkable lyrical quality of his prose or the frequent brilliance of his imagery; street-smart, like Elmore Leonard, in that his streets and the often terrible people that walk them are so mundanely real; socio-economic smart, in that his dark, almost heartbreaking, depiction of Japanese society is so believable. One feels that outside the novel's action, his characters are real people leading normal lives. A Tokyo-based British writer and partner in a money management firm, Tasker puts his knowledge of Japanese business to fine use. Detective Kazuo Mori, a former youthful rebel whose indignation at social injustice has mellowed into a weary acquiescence, is a tough guy only when necessary. He gets his information by deception, pretending to be a figure of authority. His investigation into the alleged natural death of a government official leads him into the most secret places in Japanese society: corporate files. Angel, a young woman he rescues from a Yakuza boss, may appear to be a damsel in distress, but God help anyone who crosses her. Both she and Mori are pursued by a Yakuza hitman, George the Wolf Nishio, who like so many of Leonard's criminals is frighteningly real. The publicity citing U.K. reviews plays up the Japanese manga comic books angle, but this is pure American hardboiled and it's outstanding.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Tokyo-based Tasker capitalizes on his knowledge of Japan and the financial and video-game industries to write a superb mystery in which ancient Japanese traditions clash with Tokyo's fast-paced lifestyle; violent yakuza gangsters battle robotic office workers; and corporate greed collides with corporate culture. Survival in the midst of chaos is crucial, and no one does it better than N. Mori, private detective. Colombo-like, he shambles through life, badly dressed, disorganized, and addicted to baseball and pachinko parlors. In spite of everything, however, Mori is quite a deft detective. Hired by a beautiful woman to find her lover's killer, Mori doesn't realize he's stumbled into a case that will take him from the boardrooms of Tokyo's most successful companies to its seamiest sex clubs; pit him against high-powered pharmaceutical giants and low-down gang members; cast him into the cutthroat video game industry; and oblige him to rescue prostitutes, dodge bullets, and save a friend--all before finally coming up with the name of the murderer. A riveting, violent, eye-opening, laugh-aloud, poignant, dazzling triumph. Detective fiction doesn't get much better than this! Emily Melton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 394 pages
• Publisher: Orion Publishing (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0752836765
• ISBN-13: 978-0752836768
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,202,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars appealing tough guy, good story, May 4, 2002

By 

blueotter (Chicago, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Samurai Boogie (Paperback)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Elmore Leonard in Tokyo, March 15, 2002

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Samurai Boogie (Paperback)

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.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dashiel Hammett meets William Gibson, November 30, 2001

By 

R. Gage (upstate, new york, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Samurai Boogie (Paperback)

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.