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29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
kafkaesce mystery, September 16, 2007
A strange but effective mystery set in early post-war Tokyo, this novel always seems a bit off-balance. There are murders, there is a police investigation (of sorts), but the primary interest is the portrayal of Japan under the Occupation forces and the desperation of day-to-day life in Tokyo.
You will not get a feeling about being comfortable knowing what's going on. Wheels within wheels, the police at all levels work clandestinely with the criminal gangs, and the police at all levels often seem to be working at cross-purposes to each other. Only the top-level police have access to automobiles, and it is odd to see the day starting with the sergeant barking "Bow!" and everyone bows deeply to their superiors.
When you finish the book, there's no sense of satisfaction--but this dark and disturbing work makes you feel as if you've been given a glimpse of hell--rather like Dante's Inferno. If you want a good, more conventional Japanese police novel, try Matsumoto's Points and Lines. If you want the classic police procedural, try Freeman Wills Croft's series. Tokyo Year Zero is unconventional, unsettling, and harrowing--and effective.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
excellent historical police procedural, September 11, 2007
In the summer of1946 Tokyo, the ravages of the war permeate every aspect of life in the battered city. One year to the date of the surrender, two female corpses are found in Shiba Park. Both were rape victims before being strangled.
Police Detective Minami leads the official investigation into the homicides. As he struggles with a drug addiction that helps him forget his ignominious past during the Chinese Occupation, Minami owes his allegiance to a drug lord who feeds his habit. Still he wants to solve this particular brutal case so in spite of a lack of running water, he is out seeking clues amidst the ruins of the city; that is when he is not with his mistress. When more dead females surface; each raped before being strangled, Minami knows he must concentrate on uncovering the identity of a serial killer even if he believes the victims deserve what they get as these prostitutes know the risk of picking up a customer.
TOKYO YEAR ZERO is going to be considered one of the best historical police procedural of the year. The investigation is top rate and the depressing Minami is a fascinating lead character who readers will dislike once they learn he ignores his starving family for his drug needs and his mistress. However, with the American occupation led by the invisible emperor with no clothes and MacArthur occupying a country in ruins with only a thriving black market efficiently run by criminals, Japan especially Tokyo owns this dark whodunit.
Harriet Klausner
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The "Creation" of Art, December 23, 2007
Tokyo Year Zero is a unique book written in a unique style. I enjoyed it very much. I am a frequent visitor to Tokyo and so I particularly enjoyed the ability of the author to integrate history and physical Tokyo into his novel. The author's biography says he now lives in Tokyo and to my observation this has allowed him to write a novel of Tokyo with accuracy and atmosphere. However, my enjoyment of the novel was somewhat diminished when I read pages 244-246.
Apparently, Mr. Peace in preparing to write his novel took the time, as any good author should, to read what others have written about Tokyo. In particular, Tokyo Stories edited by Lawrence Roberts. In that collection of literary short stories about Tokyo you will find on page 122 the short story The Old Part of Town by Hayashi Fumiko. In Hayashi's short story a young woman in the ruins of Tokyo after the war (sound familiar?) is looking for a place to sell her tea which she is peddling to survive. She comes to a place where, as Hayashi describes it, has piles of rusting iron, a shack with a glass door, and a man with a sweat cloth tied on his head. Inside the shack she finds that there is one stool and a postcard tacked to the wall. The man tells her about his wartime experiences in Siberia where he was interned in Mulchi near the Amur Riveer.
Turning now to Tokyo Year Zero, at page 244 Peace writes that Inspector Minami comes to a lot with a huge pile of rusty iron, and a cabin with a glass door. The worker living in the cabin has a handkerchief tied around his head and in the cabin there is a single stool and a postcard tacked to the wall. The man tells Inspector Minami that his son is interned in Siberia at Mulchi on the Amur River.
Having read this remarkably similar description taken from a work written in 1949, my opinion of the creative genius of Mr. Peace was somewhat diminished and although I continued to enjoy the novel very much I was left with the doubt that not everything written was a product of his own creative abilities.
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