To say the second book in David Peace's "Tokyo trilogy" is haunting would be to start this review with a cliche of which "Occupied City" is devoid. Yet the book stays with you, hunkers down in your memory like some needling parasite.
From novel to novel, Peace's prose is becoming both steely and limpid; like glass, the writing is sharp and — like rebuilt postwar Tokyo — its construction borders on concrete poetry.
If Peace continues on this trajectory, I would not be surprised if the third novel turns out to be a collection of haiku written with a diamond stylus.