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.

P.J. Ochlan narrates quietly and steadily as Tokyo homicide Inspector Iwata and his partner, Noriko Sakai, investigate the horrifying slaughter of a family. Soon, the pair find themselves puzzling over the ritualistic aspects of the murder: black smudges, a strange incense smell, a large black sun inscribed in charcoal, and other odd clues. Ochlan delivers the narrative and disturbing descriptions in unaccented tones. Japanese names and terms are smoothy read with a credible accent. The story of the murder is interspersed with Iwata's memories of a poem and his earlier life. This gritty yet haunting story makes for an unusual police procedural. M.B.K. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine