Looking for a terse page-turner about a hard-boiled detective on the trail of a psychotic cop-killer? With plenty of tough guys, druggies, sleazy cross-dressers, rock musicians and other various low-lifes lurking in the crevices of a glitzy red-light district?
Then Inspector Takashi Samejima — the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's answer to Sam Spade and "Dirty Harry" Callahan — is your man. This tale of a tough-as-nails cop whose beat includes Kabukicho, Asia's largest adult entertainment district, appeared in 1990, rocketing Arimasa Osawa to fame as Japan's leading author of hard-boiled fiction.
In a 1998 telephone interview, Osawa explained to this reviewer that the Shinjuku he writes about is largely a figment of his imagination.