28-03-2025
Bookshelf: What we're reading in April
Since most day-to-day operations in journalism are far from glamorous, it's fun to dig into stories where reporters are leading more exciting lives.
Enter Jake Adelstein and "Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan."
Described as "newspaper noir," this memoir charts Adelstein's journey from cub reporter to an investigative journalist with a price on his head.
The native Missourian moved to Japan to study Japanese literature and ended up landing a job as the first non-Japanese staff writer at the Yomiuri Shimbun, one of Japan's leading newspapers.
As part of the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police Press Club, he covered the crime beat with stories ranging from extortion and financial wrongdoing to human trafficking and murder.
His investigations also lead him to the yakuza, and it is the story about a particular crime boss that leads to his biggest story and the threat to his life.
The book's title may seem familiar since it was turned into a Max original series in 2022, which lasted two seasons.
Of course, this is a books column so before you dig into the show, pick up the book and enjoy a vicarious adventure into reporting.
Readers looking for even more danger can turn to "The Night of Baba Yaga" by Japanese author Akira Otani.
Publisher Soho Crime may have put it best in its description of the book as "'Kill Bill' meets 'The Handmaiden' meets 'Thelma and Louise.'"
This is Otani's first book available in English, masterfully handled by International Booker–shortlisted translator Sam Bett.
You can't help but be drawn in from the opening line: "The white sedan, reeking of blood and cigarettes, shot west into the setting sun."
The book centers on an unlikely duo: a fierce mixed-race fighter and the sheltered daughter of a crime boss whom she protects.
After a run-in with a group of "white shirts" (henchmen), Yoriko Shindo is told she can live only if she becomes the bodyguard and driver for Shoko Naiki.
Facing violence and death from all sides, the two inspire in each other the dream of living freely beyond the rule of the yakuza.
Because we're all readers here in this column, I feel comfortable confiding that, despite my best efforts, my efforts to keep up with the growing list of suggested books is falling short.
In this case, it's great to throw a few slim volumes into the mix. A new addition is Ling Ma's "Bliss Montage."
Ma's debut novel was the 2018 "Severance," a prescient pre-pandemic tale about the societal aftermath following a deadly fever outbreak.
The writer followed this up with a number of short stories, some first published in The Atlantic, The New Yorker and Playboy (where she was briefly a copy editor).
Many of those stories made their way into "Montage," which takes readers on a variety of journeys, from the mysterious office of a college professor to a Los Angeles home that a woman shares with her 100 ex-boyfriends and her husband, who only speaks in dollar signs.
Each one conjures a unique place with engaging prose that keeps your interest.
And with some stories only 10 or 20 pages, the collection of short stories offers plenty of options depending on the time you have to read.
