Tokyo Vice
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- 9,99 €
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- 9,99 €
Publisher Description
Quand Jake Adelstein intègre en 1993 le service Police-Justice du plus grand quotidien japonais, le Yomiuri Shinbun, il n'a que 24 ans et il est loin de maîtriser les codes de ce pays bien différent de son Missouri natal. À Tokyo, il couvre en étroite collaboration avec la police les affaires liées à la prostitution et au crime organisé. Pour cela, il n'hésite pas à s'enfoncer dans les quartiers rouges de la capitale, dans les entrailles du vice et de la décadence. Approché par les yakuzas, il devient leur interlocuteur favori tout en restant un informateur précieux pour la police. Une position dangereuse, inédite et ambivalente, aux frontières du crime, qui incite Jake Adelstein à entrer dans un jeu dont il ne maîtrise pas les règles.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A young Japanese-schooled Jewish-American who worked as a journalist at Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shinbun during the 1990s, debut author Adelstein began with a routine, but never dull, police beat; before long, he was notorious worldwide for engaging the dirtiest, top-most villains of Japan's organized criminal underworld, the yakuza. A pragmatic but sensitive character, Adelstein's worldview takes quite a beating during his tour of duty; thanks to his immersive reporting, readers suffer with him through the choice between personal safety and a chance to confront the evil inhabiting his city. He learns that "what matters is the purity of the information, not the person providing it," considers personal and societal theories behind Tokyo's illicit and semi-illicit pastimes like "host and hostess clubs," where citizens pay for the illusion of intimacy: "The rates are not unreasonable, but the cost in human terms are incredibly high." Adelstein also examines the investigative reporter's tendency to withdraw into cynicism ("when a reporter starts to cool down, it's very hard... ever to warm up again") but faithfully sidesteps that urge, producing a deeply thought-provoking book: equal parts cultural expos , true crime, and hard-boiled noir.
