A review by sallywilde
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein

3.0

I picked up this book expecting a good mafia story, the kind that I usually enjoy watching in movies. But even though the book begins and ends with a personal war between Adelstein and a crime boss (and I had forgotten everything about it when the last chapter arrived), this topic is lost in the tale of an American discovering the life and vices of urban Japan. The Yakuzas seem to be everywhere, even in the police and journalits' good books, but in a way that almost dilutes their power. At the end, this book is probably more about the ethic (or lack of it) of Adelstein as a journalist and how far he will embrace the vices he has been intruduced to to get the scoop and a story published. Warning: if, like me, you have no familiarity with the Japanese, it is probably better to keep notes somewhere because there is a LOT of propre nouns in this account.