There’s more politics than mayhem here, but fans of hard-boiled fiction will enjoy seeing how Japanese cop shops work.
Linked novellas from the dean of Japanese noir.
Yokoyama knows his way around a police station, as these linked novellas, reminiscent of Janwillem van de Wetering’s Amsterdam Cops series, suggest. Yet a Japanese police station is a place that’s thoroughly politicized and bureaucratic. A constant presence in each of the stories is a personnel director named Shinji Futawatari, whom everyone fears because he has unusually broad powers to reassign people to different jobs, elevating some and demoting others. “Fortunately,” writes Yokoyama, “it was a particular strength of Personnel to nurture posts that were both impenetrable and obscure, enabling transfers that were recognizable from the inside as punitive yet justifiable to the outside as existing to 'strengthen Department X or Y.' ” Futawatari’s life is made miserable by a 42-year veteran detective who refuses to be shuffled from his post for reasons that, a detective ventures, have something to do with “all that other shit.” The veteran cop, who could teach Bartleby the Scrivener a thing or two, won’t talk about it or consider a transfer, leaving Futawatari frustrated and powerless. In the next story, Futawatari—who’d been named a superintendent at the age of 40 and is nicknamed the “ace,” not for his skills but as “a reference to the trump card he held”—is a peripheral player in a cat-and-mouse game in which an anonymous cop is blackmailing a senior officer. The same threat plays in the fourth story, with a politician threatening to expose another top cop, sending the prefecture scrambling to dig up dirt. When Masaki Tsuge, who works in the Prefectural Police Headquarters, pleads on his boss’s behalf, the politico answers, smugly, “If you’re this good at kowtowing, you might want to consider running for election.” The story that precedes it is the most elusive, in which a promising woman sergeant in a deeply sexist enterprise—as Yokoyama writes, “Questions of gender aside, she was exactly the type of officer the force needed”—simply disappears from her station one day.
There’s more politics than mayhem here, but fans of hard-boiled fiction will enjoy seeing how Japanese cop shops work.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-374-23704-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Despite the stakes, the heroine’s second adventure is a generally lighthearted anti-caper.
Gabriela Rose, the recovery agent famed for being able to find almost anything, goes looking for the Rosetta Stone. And that’s only the beginning.
You didn’t know the Rosetta Stone was missing? That’s because the British Museum, wanting to keep its theft hush-hush, has been displaying a copy in its place. And Gabriela’s involvement is equally secretive. Her ex-husband, Rafer Jones, has pressed her to find it because his idiot cousin, Harley Patch, who improbably became president of the Searl and Junkett bank, has taken it upon himself to insure a slew of priceless artifacts—many of which have now gone missing. The stone, as it turns out, is surprisingly easy to find. Following the trail of Leon Blake, a new operations officer at the museum who quit two days after the theft, and John Mackey, a museum security guard who was shot to death that same day, Gabriela successfully beats out rival recovery agent Ahmed Ed Ghaly, who’s been tasked with bringing the stone back to Egypt, in the hunt. An altogether more elusive prize is the golden inner coffin of Tutankhamen’s half brother, unofficially dubbed “Brendan.” This search is more dangerous, too, because Ahmed kidnaps Harley to make sure that Gabriela turns the coffin over to him. Jim, the Cairo cabbie Gabriela hires to drive her around, takes to calling himself Jim Bond once he sees her in action; and he’s on to something—not because the fate of the free world hangs in the balance, but because “the heist to end all heists” gradually dissolves into an amusing, episodic travelogue whose climax feels like just one more picturesque tableau.
Despite the stakes, the heroine’s second adventure is a generally lighthearted anti-caper.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781668027479
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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