David Peace Tokyo Year Zero

Tokyo Year Zero

David Peace

Knopf, Sep 2007, $24.00

ISBN: 9780307263742

In the summer of 1946 Tokyo, the ravages of the war permeate every aspect of life in the battered city. One year to the date of the surrender, two female bodies are found in Shiba Park.

Police Detective Minami leads the official investigation into the homicides. As he struggles with a drug addiction that helps him forget his ignominious past during the Chinese Occupation, Minami owes his allegiance to a drug lord who feeds his habit. Still he wants to solve this particular brutal case so in spite of a lack of running water, he is out seeking clues amidst the ruins of the city; that is when he is not with his mistress. When more dead females surface; Minami knows he must concentrate on uncovering the identity of a serial killer even if he believes the victims deserve what they get as these women know the risk of picking up a customer.

TOKYO YEAR ZERO is going to be considered one of the best historical police procedural of the year. The investigation is top rate and the depressing Minami is a fascinating lead character who readers will dislike once they learn he ignores his starving family for his drug needs and his mistress. However, with the American occupation led by the invisible emperor with no clothes and MacArthur occupying a country in ruins with only a thriving black market efficiently run by criminals, Japan especially Tokyo owns this dark whodunit.

Harriet Klausner