by Hideo Yokoyama
translated by Jonathan Lloyd-Davies
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BookExcerpt
Published: 2017
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Crime, Japan
Hardback: 576
Rating: 4
First sentence(s):
Snowflakes danced through the evening light.
Six Four. The nightmare no parent could endure. The case no detective could solve. The twist no listener could predict.
For five days in January 1989, the parents of a seven-year-old Tokyo schoolgirl sat and listened to the demands of their daughter's kidnapper. They would never learn his identity. They would never see their daughter again.
For the 14 years that followed, the Japanese public listened to the police's apologies. They would never forget the botched investigation that became known as Six Four. They would never forgive the authorities their failure. For one week in late 2002, the press officer attached to the police department in question confronted an anomaly in the case.
He could never imagine what he would uncover. He would never have looked if he'd known what he would find.
My two-bits:
Mystery was more on the inner workings and politics of the police station in which the main character works.
It was interesting to see how the Six Four case tied in and the connections of all the people involved.
* part of Books, Inc. Foreign Intrigue Book Club (here)
* part of Backlist Reader Challenge (here)
