After beating Tokyo's mean streets in "Silent Thunder" (1992) and "Buddha Kiss" (1997), Peter Tasker's Tokyo gumshoe Kazuo Mori finally hit his literary stride in 1999 with "Samurai Boogie" -- one of the most entertaining works of fiction set in contemporary Japan to appear for quite some time. "Boogie" was peppered with wisecracks and populated with a host of memorably eccentric characters, ranging from a Colombo-like, chronically impecunious private detective plagued by an annoying crow on his balcony, to a comically incompetent yakuza wannabe and a company president who based business decisions on the outcome of video games.
Now, in "Dragon Dance," Tasker has set his hard-boiled detective to simmer on the back burner while he whips up a potboiler novel of international intrigue.
The narrative begins in 2006, when China is in the ascendancy and Japan's malaise is ongoing. The yen has plummeted, homeless trudge Tokyo's streets, crime festers and the mainstream politicians continue to dither and vacillate.