True Crime Japan

June 27, 2016
Pimps, arsonists, mobsters with missing pinkies, elderly shoplifters, and other criminal characters figure into Irish journalist Murphy’s zany account of modern crime and punishment in Matsumoto, Japan. After settling in this metropolis, west of Tokyo, in 2013, Murphy became a regular at the Summary and District Courts, observing 119 cases over the course of a year. Drawn to the courthouse setting, Murphy presents these cases as anecdotes pertaining to “intriguing aspects of Japan” at large. He uses the trial of a mother and father who attempted to kill their daughter in an arsonous family suicide as a way to explore why Japan’s suicide rate is twice that of the U.S. Another chapter describes the recent spike in shoplifters over the age of 70, labeled by one criminologist as bosou rojin (“out-of-control old people”). The shift in criminal activity in the elderly is the topic of a national debate about whether this segment of society has become too isolated and needy. Murphy creates a winning mix of irreverent and earnest observations in this snapshot of the underworld in modern Japan.