A standard detective story with locations that could be seen as exotic to most English readers. The writing holds it back some and as does the feeling it needs to be sensationalized.

Not my normal reading but seeing that the setting was partly in Japan, I decided to give this a try. It's rather dark with lots of swearing, casual weed smoking, sex scenes and violence. There's also a seemingingly limitless supply of both heroine and methadone. The story is told from a number of distant third person points of view so I felt like an observer of events rather than in the scenes as one of the characters - I do prefer a more immersive, close third person POV.

Our private investigator, Lee, is a bull in a china shop and hasn't heard of subtle. When a girl in Bangkok looks to have been tricked into being trafficked to Japan by the yakuza, off goes Lee to Japan, a country he doesn't know and proceeds to throw his weight around. It doesn't end well. When it all looks impossible, a lead happens to arise in Hong Kong for the final denouement. Do all the bad guys get their comeuppance? Not really. Whilst this might be truer to life, it doesn't leave the reader with any sense of hope that things will get better, and surely we all need hope these days.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Pingpong from Thailand to Japan, to Hong Kong, in the search for a jazz singer turned massage parlor trick.
Tokyo hostess or hot sheets trollop? Littered beneath the neon lights and motorbike exhaust are heroin needles the Yakuza clandestinely jab their groomed girls with to keep them compliant, doing their bedoir bidding. And there’s a “nice” working girl at the tip of this sex trafficking pyramid á la a lower-rung Ghislaine Maxwell w/ a more charismatic BF.

This is a classic detective novel but more relaxed w/ quick dialogue and a lighter tone—even amid the punches that get carried out as often as takeaway. Indulge in some wanderlust and even the regular, landless lust when the Australian-turned Eastern-detective uncovers a crush. Did I mention the guy is also a high-functioning schitzo?

These bite-size chapters—ripe with skewered street food and high-octane sticky-shirt humidity—feel so lived in, realistic. The pace is jaunty even with a million false starts (even physically, *wink, wink*) that all wind to give you that hard-won satisfaction in a game of “try, try again” against a cast of unhelpful to suspicious friends.

What makes this book stand out of course are all these colorful things, from the maid-outfitted receptionists to hair knotted like chains for girls syringed into submission. Yet all the neon beads blend together to weave the whole mandala tapestry, so nothing “sticks out like dog balls”—a phrase I learned from this piece!