Every Monday in September, we will be bringing you serialized audio excerpts from Keigo Higashino’s Salvation of a Saint. You can either click to stream and listen on your computer, or download an MP3 to play on the device of your choice whenever you like! Today, we have chapter 2, so spend your afternoon with…
For the next few Mondays we will be bringing you serialized audio excerpts from Keigo Higashino’s Salvation of a Saint. You can either click to stream and listen on your computer, or download an MP3 to play on the device of your choice whenever you like! Today, we start with the first chapter (natch!), so…
People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry is the true crime story of Lucie Blackman, who stepped out on the streets of Tokyo and disappeared in the summer of 2000 (available May 22, 2012). The research montage. CE readers know what I’m talking about. Whether it’s Cumberbatch sherlocking around a crime scene, the Doctor…
For the first time in recent memory (read: more than a decade), none of the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award nominees for Best Novel have ever been nominated before. On April 26th, one of them will be announced from the stage at New York’s Grand Hyatt Hotel and take a first walk with this…
In the 1960s and 70s, the Japanese film industry (Nikkatsu Studio to be precise) headlined a golden age for East Asian exploitation noir. After years of censorship, first outlined by Japanese Imperial government during the Second World War and later by the occupying Allies, exploitation noir films became a mode of subcultural expression and perhaps…
Go to a random bookstore in Japan and you’ll quickly find the section with travel guides. Domestic travel guides. From the southern islands of Okinawa to the northern Hokkaido, every area in Japan is covered. Because domestic tourism in Japan is big. Really big. Not so surprising, really, as there are big geographical and cultural…
I’ll admit it right away: I don’t read Dutch crime fiction. But that’s certainly not because there is none to be found. In fact, as evidenced by Leslie Elman’s “A Touch of Dutch” article, there is quite a bit. It’s just that I try to focus mainly on Japanese crime fiction. However, I had to…
Japan, 1703. On a snowy night, 47 warriors murder the man at the center of the scandal that turned them from samurai into masterless ronin two years before. Clearly this was an act of revenge—but why did they wait so long? And is there any reason they should not immediately be ordered to commit…
What are “Ramen Westerns?” Imagine a spaghetti western as a starting point. Samurais and sharpshooters are not all that different. An iaidō instructor compared his Japanese martial art of drawing the katana, striking an opponent, removing blood from blade, and placing sword back into scabbard in one fluid motion to the smooth, practiced movements of…
It is commonly said that truth is stranger than fiction, and while I won’t go quite that far, I have to admit that the truth can be quite strange at times. Criminals can be extremely creative, with the most creative often being the most successful. As G.K. Chesterton wrote in his Father Brown story “The…
