Blue Light Yokohama

Starred review from January 23, 2017
After a tantalizing prologue, Obregón maintains a high level of suspense throughout his superior fiction debut, an intricately constructed whodunit that doesn’t sacrifice depth of characterization for plot. One day in 1996, policeman Hideo Akashi and his wife are riding a cable car in the Nagasaki Prefecture when a woman attempts to open the car door. After stabbing the attendant who tries to stop her, she succeeds in opening the door and jumps out. Akashi manages to grab her by the arm, but after seeing a tattoo on her wrist of a large black sun, he lets her plummet to her death. Fifteen years later, Akashi, a respected Tokyo police inspector, jumps to his death off a bridge. Akashi had been investigating the murders of the Kaneshiros, parents and two children, who were butchered in their home by a killer who removed the father’s heart. The case passes to Inspector Iwata, who notices a drawing of a black sun on the ceiling of the bedroom where one of the victims was found. While the complex mystery itself will keep readers turning pages, the book’s real strength is Iwata, a compellingly tormented lead, whose demons don’t prevent him from doggedly pursuing the truth. Agent: Daniel Kirschen, ICM Partners.

January 1, 2017
A tough Tokyo detective faces resistance in his new post as he faces off against a brutal and taunting serial killer.Workaholic police inspector Iwata faces resistance from the moment he arrives at Tokyo's Division One. Senior inspector Isao Shindo questions his education, his experience, and his readiness for the grittiness of the Tokyo PD. Indeed, Iwata is plagued by nightmares. Luckily for him and the reader, Iwata is partnered with Sakai, a brash female detective. Their first case, from a large stack of the unsolved, is the murder of the Korean Kaneshiro family, killed in their home. The four family members were all brutally butchered and the father's heart removed. The only clue is a jagged black sun the killer etched on the ceiling in sooty smudges. Leads come in from various directions. The teenage Takako Kaneshiro had a perverted stalker; her father, Tsunemasa, was being harassed at work; the family stood in the way of a housing development represented by a scary ex-con named Kiyota. More murders follow, with the sun symbol left behind as a calling card, and the press labels the perp The Black Sun Killer. Iwata and Sakai, disrespected by the department, must fight for additional resources. Their path to the killer is long and tangled, leading far from the city and to a former investigator who holds valuable secrets. Obregon's full-bodied prose is by turns gritty and poetic, and it's consistently energetic. Given the terrific chemistry between the two lead detectives, here's hoping this debut novel kicks off a new series.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from February 1, 2017

A detective with a troubled past plus a serial killer are often ingredients for a been-there-done-that thriller. Not so with Obregon's tense, atmospheric Tokyo-set debut, which pulses with a dark energy all its own. Newly reinstated homicide cop Iwata is partnered with another inspector who makes it clear that she wants nothing to do with him (and neither does the Tokyo brass). Luckily, or not, the pair soon catch a gruesome case that requires their full attention: the murder of an entire family with ritualistic overtones, the particularly strange symbol of a black sun left at the crime scene. The victims had held a plethora of secrets, none of them good. A stalker had the teenage daughter in (presumably) his sights. The father was being harassed at work. And the killer isn't done. Iwata suffers from his own private torment--from nightmares that plague the little sleep he gets--to the near-constant repetition of the titular song in his head. VERDICT This gritty story, in what will hopefully become a new series, has roots in American noir yet fully embraces its Japanese setting, establishing Obregon as a fresh, up-and-coming voice in crime fiction.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2017
Inspector Kosuke Iwata has been transferred to Tokyo Homicide, and it appears from the start that he has been set up to fail. He is assigned a case involving the ritualistic murder of an entire family. The previous detective committed suicide. The story was inspired by an actual unsolved crime in 2000. The author includes some of the haunting curiosities from that event and adds the cultlike element of the image of a large black sun. These are not the first, nor the last, killings by the Black Sun Killer, and Iwata must determine how the victims were connected before he can identify the dark forces at work. Iwata is a man beset by many devils of his own. He is obsessed with the song Blue Light Yokohama, and lines relating to two troubling backstories about his earlier life are frequent, at times distracting from what is otherwise a compelling narrative. This moody noir by debut author Obregon succeeds on many levels, although the ending seems just a bit too upbeat for the genre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)