In "You Only Live Twice" (1964), the 12th in Ian Fleming's series of James Bond novels, a perplexed Tiger Tanaka, MI5's Japanese secret police liaison, informs 007 he was unaware that ninjas still existed.
JAPANTOWN, by Barry Lancet. Simon and Schuster, 2013, 416 pp., $25 (hardcover)
STRAWBERRY YELLOW, by Naomi Hirahara. Prospect Park Books, 2013, 239 pp., $15 (paperback)