People Who Eat Darkness
The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo—and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up
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4.0 • 249 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Lucie Blackman—tall, blond, twenty-one years old—stepped out into the vastness of Tokyo in the summer of 2000, and disappeared forever. The following winter, her dismembered remains were found buried in a seaside cave.
Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, covered Lucie's disappearance and followed the massive search for her, the long investigation, and the even longer trial. Over ten years, he earned the trust of her family and friends, won unique access to the Japanese detectives and Japan's convoluted legal system, and delved deep into the mind of the man accused of the crime, Joji Obara, described by the judge as "unprecedented and extremely evil."
The result is a book at once thrilling and revelatory, "In Cold Blood for our times" (Chris Cleave, author of Incendiary and Little Bee).
The People Who Eat Darkness is one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books of 2012
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
London Times Asia editor and Tokyo bureau chief Parry (In the Time of Madness) spent nearly a decade in pursuit of the truth behind the disappearance and murder of a young British woman in Tokyo. He offers an exceptional and terrifying account of sexual sadism, the Japanese legal system, and a family ripped apart by tragedy. Twenty-one-year-old Lucie Blackman traveled to Tokyo with her best friend in 2000 to pay off her debts by "hostessing," which, unlike prostitution, simply involved chatting up male visitors for as long as possible. But one night, Lucie disappeared. For seven months, her father, Tim, and younger sister Sophie traveled to Tokyo repeatedly, begging for help from the public and the inept police, who seemed to be investigating at a glacial pace. Eventually, Lucie's dismembered remains were found buried in a seaside cave near the home of the only suspect. Reporting the story, Parry discovered a side of Japan he hadn't known; his Tokyo thrums with energy, and the long-dead Lucie haunts the page as her killer fills the reader's consciousness with an undeniable sense of dread.
Customer Reviews
Easy read, informative as well as captivating
While the book jumps around quite a bit, it holds your attention, provides interesting anecdotes of Japanese and British culture and keeps you on the roller coaster ride of an almost decade long journey for justice. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it!
People who eat darkness
I read many many true-crime novels. This was way too long and drawn out but still it drew me in. Of course the true case was way too long and drawn out, also. Back to Ann Rule.
Provocative
Varied information from history and culture of police system to wartime inner action between Japan, China and Korea, and many other esoteric topics was fascinating to me. Clearly written as a tale of corruption and murder--but with a few incomplete and loose ends concerning related, interlaced tales.