From “British crime fiction’s most exciting new voice in decades” (GQ) comes an electrifying novel that revisits a series of shocking crimes committed in post–World War II, bombed-out, American-occupied Tokyo. On August 15, 1946—the first anniversary of the Japanese surrender—the partially decomposed, raped, and strangled bodies of two women are found in Shiba Park. More murders will soon be uncovered: women killed in the same way, and, it becomes clear, by the same hand. Narrated by the irreverent, despairing yet determined Detective Minami of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, Tokyo Year Zero tells a fictionalized story of the real-life hunt for “the Japanese Bluebeard”—a decorated Imperial soldier who raped and murdered at least ten women amid the bleak turmoil of post-war Japan (“one huge sea of displaced persons . . . one minute here and one minute gone”). And it is the story of Detective Minami: chasing down, and haunted by, memories of atrocities that he can no longer explain or forgive. Unblinking in its vision of a nation in a chaotic, hellish period in its history; of the rawness of emotion left in the wake of war; and of the moral and psychological corruption engendered by its aftermath—Tokyo Year Zero is unforgettable, a darkly lyrical and stunningly original crime novel.

Tokyo Year Zero

Literature & Fiction

PEACE, David

British & Irish

KNOPF

A fierce, exquisitely dark novel that plunges us into post–World War II Occupied Japan in a Rashomon-like retelling of a mass poisoning (based on an actual event), its aftermath, and the hidden wartime atrocities that led to the crime. On January 26, 1948, a man identifying himself as a public health official arrives at a bank in Tokyo. There has been an outbreak of dysentery in the neighborhood, he explains, and he has been assigned by Occupation authorities to treat everyone who might have been exposed to the disease. Soon after drinking the medicine he administers, twelve employees are dead, four are unconscious, and the “official” has fled . . . Twelve voices tell the story of the murder from different perspectives. One of the victims speaks, for all the victims, from the grave. We read the increasingly mad notes of one of the case detectives, the desperate letters of an American occupier, the testimony of a traumatized survivor. We meet a journalist, a gangster-turned-businessman, an “occult detective,” a Soviet soldier, a well-known painter. Each voice enlarges and deepens the portrait of a city and a people making their way out of a war-induced hell. Occupied City immerses us in an extreme time and place with a brilliantly idiosyncratic, expressionistic, mesmerizing narrative. It is a stunningly audacious work of fiction from a singular writer.

Occupied City

Product Description 
A thrilling postmodern noir about the real-life disappearance, in 1949, of one of Japan's most powerful figures, and the three men who try--and fail--to crack the case.\nTokyo, July 1949. The president of the National Railways of Japan vanishes. As American and Japanese investigators scrambled for answers, the case went cold--and it remains unsolved to this day. In 
Tokyo Redux, celebrated crime writer David Peace channels drama, research, and intrigue into this strikingly intelligent fictionalization of Japan's most enduring and haunting mystery.\nSpanning decades, Peace's novel reveals how the lives of three men all come to revolve around the same inexpicable disappearance. Starting in American-occupied Tokyo, where tension and confusion reign, American detective Harry Sweeney leads the missing-person investigation for General MacArthur's GHQ. Fifteen years later, as Tokyo prepares for the global spotlight as host of the summer Olympics, private investigator Murota Hideki--who was a policeman during the Occupation--is confronted by this very same case, and is forced to address something he's been hiding for more than a decade. And twenty-plus years after that, as Emperor Shōwa lays dying, Donald Reichenbach, an aging American eking out a living in Japan teaching and translating, discovers that the final reckoning of the greatest mystery of the era is now in his hands.\nThe concluding installment of Peace’s acclaimed Tokyo Trilogy, 
Tokyo Redux is a page-turning portrait of post-World War II Tokyo and an inside look into a storied crime that continues to haunt multiple generations. 
 Review 
"Peace's most James Ellroy-like book yet . . . a powerful, stirring read." —John Self, 
The Times (London)\n""The details are meticulously researched...The effect is one of transfixing veracity...Repetition and rhyme, trusted Peace techniques (some might say tics), give the prose an incantatory rhythm and an epic feel...Many novels are hyped as “polyphonic”, but Peace’s now complete Tokyo trilogy truly is, brilliantly summoning forth multiple voices in the soundscape of a city gripped by seismic change." —Tanjil Rashid, 
The Guardian\n"Peace [is] near his best in this powerful, overwhelming novel, in which genre excitement steadily gives way to the uncannier frisson of being plugged into a current of secret knowledge." —Anthony Cummins, 
The Observer\n"A brisk and atmospheric true-crime thriller." — 
Kirkus Reviews\n"David Peace has always been a novelist of stamina, scale and historical ambition." —Jude Cook, 
Literary Review 
"Another typically brilliant and idiosyncratic neo noir from one of our finest novelists. A murder mystery set in 1949 Japan during the US occupation it has all of Peace's usual flair for language and characterization with an additional delicious layer of Pynchonesque baroque conspiracy. I loved it." -- Adrian McKinty, best-selling author of 
The Chain 
 About the Author 
DAVID PEACE is the author of 
Patient X; the Red Riding Quartet ( 
Nineteen Seventy-Four, Nineteen Seventy-Seven, Nineteen Eighty, and 
 Nineteen Eighty-Three); 
GB84, which was awarded the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction; 
The Damned Utd; and 
Red or Dead, which was short-listed for the Goldsmiths Prize. 
Tokyo Redux is the final part of his Tokyo Trilogy, following 
Tokyo Year Zero and 
Occupied City. He lives in Tokyo. 
 Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 
Chapter 1\nThe First Day\nJuly 5, 1949\nThe Occupation had a hangover, but still the Occupation went to work: with gray stubble shadows and damp sweat stains, heels and soles up stairs and down corridors, toilets flushing and faucets running, doors opening and doors closing, cabinets and drawers, windows wide and fans turning, fountain pens scratching and typewriter keys banging, telephones ringing and a voice calling out, For you, Harry.\nOn the fourth floor of the NYK building, in the enormous office that was Room 432 of the Public

Tokyo Redux: A novel (Tokyo Trilogy)

Genre Fiction

It's August 1946—one year after the Japanese surrender—and women are turning up dead all over Tokyo. Detective Minami of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police—irreverent, angry, despairing—goes on the hunt for a killer known as the Japanese Bluebeard—a decorated former Imperial soldier who raped and murdered at least ten women amidst the turmoil of post-war Tokyo. As he undertakes the case, Minami is haunted by his own memories of atrocities that he can no longer explain or forgive. Unblinking in its vision of a nation in a chaotic, hellish period in its history, Tokyo Year Zero is a darkly lyrical and stunningly original crime novel.

Tokyo Year Zero: Book One of the Tokyo Trilogy

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

On January 26, 1948, a man posing as a public health official arrives at a bank in Tokyo. He explains that he’s there to treat everyone who might have been exposed to a recent outbreak of dysentery. Soon after drinking the medicine he administers, twelve employees are dead, four are unconscious, and the “official” has fled. Twelve voices tell the story of the murder from different perspectives including a journalist, a gangster-turned-businessman, an “occult detective,” and a well-known painter. Each voice enlarges and deepens the portrait of a city and a people making their way out of a war-induced hell. Told with David Peace’s brilliantly idiosyncratic and mesmerizing voice, Occupied City is a stunningly audacious work from a singular writer.

Occupied City: Book Two of the Tokyo Trilogy

United States

The first installment of David Peace's electrifying Red Riding Quartet vividly brings to life a gritty, dangerous working class city tormented by a series of brutal murders. Nineteen Seventy-Four follows Eddie Dunford, the newly minted crime correspondent for the Yorkshire Post. His first story is about Clare Kemplay, a young girl recently found brutally murdered. While the police department and other crime reporters at the newspaper believe it's an isolated incident, Eddie finds a pattern between Clare's disappearance and those of other girls from a few years earlier. Despite his better judgment, and against the advice of others, he starts to dig deep. What he finds is a nightmare of corruption, violence, blackmail, and obsession that ultimately leads to a shocking, explosive conclusion.

Nineteen Seventy-Four: The Red Riding Quartet, Book One

Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

David Peace's acclaimed Red Riding Quartet continues with this exhilarating follow-up to Nineteen Seventy-Four. It's summer in Leeds and the city is anxiously awaiting the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Detective Bob Fraser and Jack Whitehead, a reporter at the Post, however, have other things on their minds-mainly the fact that someone is murdering prostitutes. The killer is quickly dubbed the “Yorkshire Ripper” and each man, on their own, works tirelessly to catch him. But their investigations turn grisly as they each engage in affairs with the prostitutes they are supposedly protecting. As the summer progresses, the killings accelerate and it seems as if Fraser and Whitehead are the only men who suspect or care that there may be more than one killer at large.

Nineteen Seventy-Seven: The Red Riding Quartet, Book Two

Continuing the narrative begun with Nineteen Seventy-Four and Nineteen Seventy-Seven, this electrifying third installment of David Peace’s Red Riding Quartet demonstrates a skill that goes above and beyond the limits of the genre. While Yorkshire is terrorized by the Ripper, the corrupt police continue to prosper. To give the case some new life, Peter Hunter, a “clean” cop from nearby Manchester, is brought in to offer a fresh perspective. As he goes about setting up a new case under the radar, he suffers the same fate as those who previously attempted to get in the way of the Ripper: his house is burned down, his wife threatened. But he soldiers on. And as he comes face to face with unthinkable evil, Hunter struggles to maintain his reputation, his sanity, and his life.

Nineteen Eighty: The Red Riding Quartet, Book Three

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

In Nineteen Eighty-Three, David Peace brings his astonishing series of riveting, gritty crime novels to a shocking conclusion. With three separate narrators whose paths are on a collision course, Peace makes a dark study of perverted justice, retribution, and urban decay. Maurice Jobson is a Yorkshire cop whose greed and corruption has rotted the police force to the core; BJ is a local street thug who finds he can no longer safely lurk in the shadows; and John Piggott, a lawyer, is as honest and forthright as they come. His investigation of a long-cold murder might just be the cure for Yorkshire’s woes, but he’ll need to get through it alive first.

Nineteen Eighty-Three: The Red Riding Quartet, Book Four

The acclaimed author of Occupied City, Tokyo Year Zero, and The Red Riding Quartet now gives us a stunning work of fiction in twelve connected tales that take up the strange, brief life of the brilliant twentieth-century Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Haunting and evocative, brutal and surreal, these twelve connected tales evoke the life of the Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927), whose short story "In the Grove" served as an inspiration for Akira Kurosawa's famous film Rashōmon, and whose narrative use of multiple perspectives and different versions of a single event influenced generations of storytellers. Writing out of his own obsession with Akutagawa, David Peace delves into the known facts and events of the writer's life and inner world--birth to a mother who was mentally ill and a father who died shortly thereafter; his own battles with mental illness; his complicated reaction to the beginnings of modernization and Westernization of Japan; his short but prolific writing career; his suicide at the age of thirty-five--and creates a stunningly atmospheric and deeply moving fiction that tells its own story of a singularly brilliant mind.

Patient X: The Case-Book of Ryunosuke Akutagawa

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