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A review by multiplexer
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein
5.0
Tokyo Vice was not what I expected.
I learned about Tokyo Vice from NPR's Planet Money and listened to the interview with Jake Adelstein about the economics of Yakuza crime in Japan. I was expecting something more like "Tokyo Underground" but with a more economics spin. What I got was a very interesting True Crime book about the seedier side of Tokyo and its outer suburbs.
Although the book didn't give me what I initially expected, it did dish up huge heaping servings of wonderful True Crime Noir. Jake Adelstein has really lived the life out there on the streets and he's not afraid to tell the stories exactly as they were. Some of the stories end with the bad guy getting it in the end and sometimes the bad guys win. His best work is his portrayal of the cops on the beat and how hard these Detective guys work in a culture so obsessed with saving face that they have to step around insane restrictions to get anything done.
He describes hookers, drug dealers, club owners, sex traffickers, the issues of being gaijin in the Japanese underground, and all sorts of yakuza and insane sleaze. The best story may be the one about the serial rapist who took girls to his condo on the ocean and drugged them.
If you're interested in Noir and crime stories, I can highly recommend this book. The writing is crisp and clear. The book moves along briskly without ever getting bogged down. Jake's fight for the rights of women trapped in Japanese human trafficking and sex slave schemes is an amazing bit of reporting.
I read this version on the Kindle.
I learned about Tokyo Vice from NPR's Planet Money and listened to the interview with Jake Adelstein about the economics of Yakuza crime in Japan. I was expecting something more like "Tokyo Underground" but with a more economics spin. What I got was a very interesting True Crime book about the seedier side of Tokyo and its outer suburbs.
Although the book didn't give me what I initially expected, it did dish up huge heaping servings of wonderful True Crime Noir. Jake Adelstein has really lived the life out there on the streets and he's not afraid to tell the stories exactly as they were. Some of the stories end with the bad guy getting it in the end and sometimes the bad guys win. His best work is his portrayal of the cops on the beat and how hard these Detective guys work in a culture so obsessed with saving face that they have to step around insane restrictions to get anything done.
He describes hookers, drug dealers, club owners, sex traffickers, the issues of being gaijin in the Japanese underground, and all sorts of yakuza and insane sleaze. The best story may be the one about the serial rapist who took girls to his condo on the ocean and drugged them.
If you're interested in Noir and crime stories, I can highly recommend this book. The writing is crisp and clear. The book moves along briskly without ever getting bogged down. Jake's fight for the rights of women trapped in Japanese human trafficking and sex slave schemes is an amazing bit of reporting.
I read this version on the Kindle.