Tag: throwbackthursday

Throwback Thursday: The Last Train by Michael Pronko

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ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme originally created by Renee at It’s Book Talk.  It’s designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago.

Today I’m revisiting a book I reviewed in December 2017 but which had been on my author review pile for quite a long while before that – The Last Train by Michael Pronko – the first in the author’s Detective Hiroshi series set in Tokyo.  The Last Train was published in May 2017 and you can find purchase links below.  It is also now available as an audiobook.

The Moving BladeAs you will see from my review below, I really enjoyed The Last Train so I was thrilled to learn from the author’s July newsletter that the next book in the series, The Moving Blade, is due out on 10th September 2018.  Find out more about it here.

TheLastTrainAbout the Book

Detective Hiroshi Shimizu investigates white collar crime in Tokyo. He’s lost his girlfriend and still dreams of his time studying in America, but with a stable job, his own office and a half-empty apartment, he’s settled in.   When an American businessman turns up dead, his mentor Takamatsu calls him out to the site of a grisly murder. A glimpse from a security camera video suggests the killer was a woman, but in Japan, that seems unlikely. Hiroshi quickly learns how close homicide and suicide can appear in a city full of high-speed trains just a step – or a push – away. Takamatsu drags Hiroshi out to the hostess clubs and skyscraper offices of Tokyo in search of the killer. To find her, Hiroshi goes deeper and deeper into Tokyo’s intricate, ominous market for buying and selling the most expensive land in the world. Hiroshi’s determined to cut through Japan’s ambiguities – and dangers – to find the murdering ex-hostess before she extracts her final revenge – which just might be him.

Format: Audiobook/ebook, paperback (348 pp.) Publisher: Raked Gravel Press
Published: 5th May 2017                                          Genre: Crime, Thriller

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Last Train on Goodreads

My Review

When I interviewed Michael on my blog last year (click here to read the full interview), he described The Last Train as ‘more whydunit than whodunit’ and having now read the book I can certainly understood why he said that.  Much of the excitement of the book comes from following detective Hiroshi Suzuki in his attempts to identify and track down the woman who committed the murderer.  The trail leads him from the flashy malls and smart high-rise buildings to the decidedly seedier world of hostess clubs and bars.  As the author explains, “…in the novel, I wanted to look beneath the surface. The giant skyscrapers and constant construction are amazing, but there’s a lot going on behind the go-go big-city bright-lights, and a lot of it not so good.”

As the investigation progresses, Hiroshi begins to understand the threat he faces from vested interests who may be involved in the shady dealings he starts to uncover.  He also starts to realise just what a clever and ruthless opponent he is up against and to get an inkling into the motivation that drives her.  When the full facts are revealed you may find yourself questioning where true justice lies.

What really set The Last Train apart from other run-of-the-mill crime thrillers for me was its Tokyo setting.  I loved learning all about Japanese culture and customs.  Take this scene in which Hiroshi and his boss, Takamatsu, drink sake together in the traditional manner.

‘The master pulled back a brown curtain over a glass-sided refrigerator filled with sake bottles.  He pulled out two small chilled glasses from the top shelf and set these on the upper counter inside small, square, cedar wood boxes.  The master shuffled the dozen or so bottles inside the fridge until he found the ones he wanted.  Carrying these to the counter, he hoisted the large bottle of cold sake and, cradling it in the crook of his arm, poured out the clear, clean liquid.  The sake flowed gently over the top of the lip of the glass into the box, arousing the aroma of cedar and fresh rice.  He poured out sake from a different bottle for Hiroshi and placed both bottles on the counter so that each displayed the artful calligraphy of their labels.

They bowed down like penitents to take the first sip without spilling.  Then they plucked up the small, thumb-sized glasses for a silent toast before downing the second gulp.  Finally, they poured the spill-over from the cedar box into the glass, took another sip, and set their half-full glasses back inside the wet cedar boxes.’

The book cleverly brings to life the intriguing juxtaposition of ancient and modern that exists in Japan.  So you have the temples and prayer rituals, the elaborate customs for greeting and drinking tea.  But at the same time you have the flashy malls full of shops selling designer goods and the latest technology and the packed subways and sidewalks of Roppongi.

‘People streamed out of subway exits, slid out of taxis, and stepped off bus after bus.  Hordes of office workers in dull gray pants and dark skirts blocked corners, shouting directions into their cell phones to those yet to arrive.  Fashion-conscious hipsters, mini-skirted amateurs, and yakuza wannabes walked to their favourite places to play, eat, drink, or work.’

The work culture with its emphasis on drinking with colleagues after work, to my eyes at least, seems particularly alien and the position of women quite regressive with real antipathy in some quarters towards women whose behaviour is seen as ‘un-Japanese’.

I really enjoyed The Last Train for both its compelling storyline and its use of Tokyo as a location.  Luckily for me – and I suspect, other readers – the author is working on two further books in the series, both of which are due for publication in 2018.

In three words: Atmospheric, compelling, mystery

Try something similar… Wolves in the Dark by Gunnar Staalesen (click here to read my review)

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MichaelPronkoAbout the Author

Michael Pronko is a professor of American Literature and Culture at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo and writes about Japanese culture, art, jazz, and politics for Newsweek Japan, The Japan Times, Artscape Japan and other publications.  He has appeared on NHK Public TV, Tokyo MXTV and Nippon Television.  His website, Jazz in Japan can be found at www.jazzinjapan.com.  His award-winning collections of essays about life in Tokyo are: Beauty and Chaos: Slices and Morsels of Tokyo Life (2014), Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens: Essays on Tokyo (2014), and Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo (2015). He has also published three essay collections in Japanese.  When not teaching or writing, he wanders Tokyo contemplating its intensity and waiting for the stories to come.

Connect with Michael

Website  ǀ  Facebook ǀ  Twitter  ǀ  Goodreads

Throwback Thursday: The Good Father by S. R. Wilsher

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ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme created by Renee at It’s Book Talk.  It’s designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago.

Today I’m revisiting a book I reviewed in April 2018 but which had been on my author review pile for quite a long while before that – The Good Father by S. R. Wilsher.  The Good Father was published in April 2017 and you can find purchase links below.  You can also read my earlier Q&A with S.R. Wilsher here.

As you’ll see from my review below, I really enjoyed The Good Father so I was thrilled to learn from Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources that the author has another book due out on 20th August, The Glass Diplomat.  You probably won’t be surprised that I’ve signed up to take part in the blog tour that Rachel is organising to promote the book.

TheGoodFatherAbout the Book

In 1994, nine year old Effie and her twelve year old brother Ajan, endure the horrors of life in the besieged city of Sarajevo after the loss of their parents. Desperate to help preserve their city, Ajan becomes involved with a criminal gang among the makeshift defenders. When Effie is forced to flee alone, she must survive long enough to reach those outside of the city who have come to help. But the influence of those pursuing her is such that not even the soldiers of the UN might be able to save her. Any hope of a future for Effie eventually lies with only one man, Captain Nathan Lane.

It is 2017, and an attempt is made on the life of Foreign Secretary, Caroline Hardy. As the Security Services hunt for her attacker, the reality she is only a bit part player in the affair doesn’t occur to anyone. Not until her daughter, Mia goes missing and is implicated in the disappearance of a well-connected lawyer. As the focus switches to Mia, a secret that Caroline has kept hidden for a long time threatens them both, until there becomes only one place she can turn, to the man who shares her secret.

Format: ebook (434 pp.)  Publisher:
Published: 27th April 2017 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Thriller

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Good Father on Goodreads

My Review

Recent events in Syria have brought to the fore again the question of the legitimacy of other countries getting involved in conflicts within another sovereign state, even for humanitarian reasons.    This came to mind as I was reading the opening scenes of the book set in the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s.  The author convincingly portrays the devastation wrought by the bombing of Sarajevo and the effect on the population; the constant risk from snipers, the homes reduced to rubble, public services including hospitals destroyed and those inhabitants who remain struggling to find enough food to keep themselves alive.

‘Each season throws up its impossible challenges.  People die from cold in the winter.  While in summer they die from complacency. Food and water and shelter are issues every day irrespective of where the sun sits in the sky.  The snipers and the artillery are indifferent to the time of year.  Death enjoys every day.’ 

In particular, the story focuses on the children affected by the conflict, many of them orphans left to fend for themselves or part of feral gangs, open to exploitation.  If they survive it’s because they have learned to steal, trust no-one and fight for their lives if necessary.  It’s a chilling picture of a stolen youth.

The action moves ahead twenty-three years and, in what seems initially to be a separate storyline, an assassination attempt on British Foreign Secretary, Caroline Hardy.  Both she and her daughter, Mia, who was in the car at the time, escape with their lives although Mia is injured.  When a further incident occurs, Caroline begins to wonder if she was actually the intended target or if the answer lies in secrets from the past.  Some people, it seems, have long memories and, as the saying goes, revenge is a dish best served cold.

Caroline enlists the investigative assistance of Nathan Lane, a former army officer, who shares her secret.   It’s not long before Nathan realises the case is more complex than it first appeared and the would-be assassin is not the only person motivated by revenge for past events.  As well as following Nathan’s investigation, the reader is given an insight into Mia’s life in the weeks leading up to the assassination attempt.  The book builds to an action-packed conclusion by which time I was convinced that if I’m ever in trouble, I want a Nathan Lane in my life.

Thank you to the author for my review copy in return for an honest and unbiased review.    I feel bad it’s taken me so long to get round to reading The Good Father, not only because the author has been patiently awaiting my review but because I’ve deprived myself of a really entertaining, well-structured thriller.   The Good Father also earns points for the first mention of Brexit and its implications I’ve come across in a book.

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In three words: Compelling, action-packed, suspenseful

Try something similar… The Last Train by Michael Pronko (read my review here)

SRWilsherAbout the Author

S. R. Wilsher writes: I began writing when I was twenty, even though I was uncertain that I had a book in me. And I was so afraid of being a failed writer that, for a very long time, nobody knew I wrote. I’ve dealt with that fear of failing by always continuing to write. I figure that if I keep going I’ve not failed yet.

I resisted self-publishing for years, having grown up in an era where the only alternative to traditional publishing was vanity publishing. But, eventually, I decided to stop hiding inside a bubble of rewriting based only on second-guessing rejection letters, and accepted that the traditional route was closed to me. The thirty years of rejections might have been trying to tell me something, but they rarely spelled out whether I should write or not. I hoped self-publishing would supply that answer. That’s why I’m always grateful for reviews, as they encourage me to keep trying.

However, I continue to write for no other reason than I enjoy it deeply. I like the challenge of making a story work. I get a thrill from tinkering with the structure, of creating characters that I care about, and of manipulating a plot that unravels unpredictably yet, hopefully, logically. I like to write myself into a corner and then see how I can escape. To me, writing is a puzzle I like to spend my time trying to solve. Publication is the deep sigh of setting the completed puzzle aside. The marketing bit beyond that is something else entirely!

Connect with S. R. Wilsher

Website ǀ  Twitter  ǀ  Goodreads