A review by emckeon1002
Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama

2.0

I struggled through 300 of the 600 pages of this book and finally put it down in complete frustration. It was sold as a crime novel, which it is, only marginally. It's a police procedural with the focus on "procedural" including the petty bureaucracy, politics and formal courtesies of the Japanese police of Prefecture D, the press who cover the police and a decade-old kidnapping and murder which is a catalyst for the internecine rivalries. I'm sure it was a difficult translation, and likely faithful, but there is little poetry, drama or tension in the words or the story. It plods and plods, slowly (did I mention slowly), revealing the personality of a main character who is completely out-of-touch with his own emotions, and with those around him, and a police corruption case that pits this character against his former colleagues. How does it end? Who cares?