Lady Joker, Volume 1
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
One of Japan’s great modern masters, Kaoru Takamura, makes her English-language debut with this two-volume publication of her magnum opus.
Tokyo, 1995. Five men meet at the racetrack every Sunday to bet on horses. They have little in common except a deep disaffection with their lives, but together they represent the social struggles and griefs of post-War Japan: a poorly socialized genius stuck working as a welder; a demoted detective with a chip on his shoulder; a Zainichi Korean banker sick of being ostracized for his race; a struggling single dad of a teenage girl with Down syndrome. The fifth man bringing them all together is an elderly drugstore owner grieving his grandson, who has died suspiciously after the revelation of a family connection with the segregated buraku community, historically subjected to severe discrimination.
Intent on revenge against a society that values corporate behemoths more than human life, the five conspirators decide to carry out a heist: kidnap the CEO of Japan’s largest beer conglomerate and extract blood money from the company’s corrupt financiers.
Inspired by the unsolved true-crime kidnapping case perpetrated by “the Monster with 21 Faces,” Lady Joker has become a cultural touchstone since its 1997 publication, acknowledged as the magnum opus by one of Japan’s literary masters, twice adapted for film and TV and often taught in high school and college classrooms.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Takamura makes her English-language debut with an excellent crime novel centered on a kidnapping. In 1995, Kyosuke Shiroyama, the head of one of Japan's leading companies, Hinode Beer, is snatched from his home by a criminal or criminals, who leave a message simply reading "we have your president." A massive police inquiry ensues, which focuses on ascertaining who might have an axe to grind against the company. The investigators probe a possible connection to events from 1990, when a dentist, after his son died, accused Hinode of improperly denying his child employment. Between that accusation and the abduction, various characters from a wide range of society are introduced, including a truck driver, a lathe operator, a banker, and a disgraced cop, who eventually unite in plotting Shiroyama's kidnapping. This approach raises the emotional stakes leading up to the crime and its aftermath, though the resolution awaits the second volume. Readers open to delaying gratification will be hooked. Takamura shows why she's one of Japan's most prominent mystery novelists.
