The volcanic hinterland known as Onioshidashi (“What the Devil Pushed Out”) sprawls across a portion of the volcano’s flank. A section of the alien landscape has been “tamed” to accommodate visitors.
To this day, volcanic hotspots dot the Japanese countryside. A tour through certain regions will yield vents and other “holes” where steam and hot spring waters spew forth on a continuous basis. In some parts of the country, steam rises up along mountain roads, creating an eerie sense of stepping back through time.
The brief geological references about the formation of the Japanese archipelago are also accurate. Coincidentally, around the time I began writing this book, an underwater eruption in Japanese waters some six hundred miles south of Tokyo gave birth to a new island, which in its expansion eventually combined with a small speck of an island known as Nishinoshima, the name the fused landmass assumed. As of this writing, the slowly expanding island is approximately one square mile in size, with a plume of white smoke rising from its center.
The events of the disastrous earthquake and tsunami, as well as the resultant triple meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, happened. Anti-nuclear journalists and media personalities remain at risk. Despite scathing reports from the US Atomic Energy Commission, the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (sanctioned by the Japan’s National Diet), and the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that involved 182 experts from 41 countries, the nuclear industry’s business practices do not seem to have progressed beyond cosmetic changes. Cynics have postulated that the Diet report was allowed to see print in order to throw some crumbs to outspoken critics in Japan and present the image of a self-reflective Japan overseas, while behind the scenes the industry is permitted, with the government’s blessing, to carry on as usual.
Fortunately, other forces are on the move, so the last chapter in the drama has yet to be written. (I should like to add that determining the nuclear mafia’s potential for violence is a chore I will leave to nonfiction writers. My exploration is fictitious, as is, of course, Dr. Ohashi and his think tank.)
* * *
On the art side, Furuta Oribe (born Furuta Shigenari, 1544–1615) was a tea ceremony master and samurai recognized in part for his patronage of the ceramic style known as Oribe, named in his honor. He was instrumental in offering a more flamboyant slant on Japanese tea ceremony utensils than that preferred by his contemporary, the legendary tea master Sen no Rikyu. At its best, Oribe ware can be profound.
Traditionally, as mentioned in these pages, Oribe ceramics have two color schemes—green and black. Classic as well as contemporary pieces reside in museum collections throughout the world. These include tea bowls, fan-shaped dishes with and without lids, square and asymmetrical dishes with and without handles, tea caddies, ewers, small food vessels, and more. The pieces of the early Oribe potters remain as fresh and stunning today as when they were first crafted some three or four hundred years ago.
The Japanese tea bowl, of which there are many styles, is a central piece in the tea ceremony; the points of appreciation mentioned by Brodie as he inspects the offerings of his fellow art dealer are accurate.
Heading stateside, the San Francisco City Hall and the Asian Art Museum face each other across a plaza in the Civic Center section of the city. The Napa County Sheriff’s Department is headquartered in a building near the Napa Airport. The di Rosa preserve is a prominent art destination in the Napa Valley. A visit makes for a pleasant afternoon. The art is big and brassy, the galleries inspirational, and the grounds worth exploring.
The work of the fictional police artist is based on a lengthy session I had with an actual police officer and forensic artist with FBI and other training. She is mentioned in the acknowledgments. I sat through a full session in which I described an acquaintance as if I were a witness to a crime he had committed. Her accuracy was uncanny.
In Washington, DC, the Willard and all the landmarks do, of course, exist. Chinatown is there in name, if little else. The House & Hill pub is, for better or worse, fictitious.
The upscale izakaya Uoshin in the Shibuya district of Tokyo where Brodie and Rie meet for the first of two dinners also exists, as does the fugu restaurant, Miura-ya, in the Asakusa area across town. Regardless of the blowfish establishment, the selection of dishes Brodie partakes of is a meal I have sat down to—and lived through—numerous times. Knock on wood.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my publisher, Simon & Schuster, and my agent, Robert Gottlieb of Trident Media Agency. Both have offered insights and given support that make the Jim Brodie series possible and better. At Simon & Schuster, I am indebted to Jonathan Karp, Marysue Rucci, Richard Rhorer, Sarah Knight, Elina Vaysbeyn, Brit Hvide, Leah Johanson, Jill Su, and Kaitlin Olson. At Trident, to Erica Spellman-Silverman, Mark Gottlieb, and Adrienne Lombardo; and at Creative Artists Agency, to Brian Pike.
I wish to thank Christine Golez, retired police officer and detective of the Fairfield Police Department, who is currently employed part-time at the Suisun City PD. Christine combined her policing and artistic talents to become a top forensic artist. She was kind enough to take time out from her busy schedule to lead me through the intricacies of the procedure. Based on subsequent collars by her colleagues, the accuracy of her police composites is impressive.
Additional thanks are due to Dr. William Sherman for his medical guidance, and to Dr. Robert Shpall, and his wife Beverly, for the introduction and general medical advice; to Shuji Yoshida, a Japanese geology professor who studies volcanoes and natural disasters in Japan; to Japanese-to-English translator Gavin Frew for reading behind me, and to his wife, English-to-Japanese translator Fumiko Yokoyama, for overall support; to Shigeyoshi Suzuki and Marc Lancet for lending me works from their personal libraries for my research; to Mio Urata for introducing me to the restaurant Uoshin; to Patrick Sherriff, whose interview inadvertently spurred me on to write about Japan’s triple disaster—3/11—several years earlier than planned; likewise to those readers who attended my book talks and asked cogent questions about the disaster, driving the point home; to Hajime Saito for assistance with the mountain climbing terminology and Ginny Tapley Takemori for the introduction; and to the ever-vigilant, eagle-eyed production staff at Simon & Schuster: Kathryn Higuchi, Anne Cherry, James Walsh, and Ellen Sasahara.
I am indebted to Anthony Franze—friend and fellow writer—for generously finding the time in his ever hectic schedule to show me the ins and outs of his city, Washington, DC. And thanks to his wife, Tracy, for allowing me to steal him away for lengthy periods of time. I owe an additional debt to Anthony and our fellow editor of The Big Thrill, Dawn Ius, for giving me some leeway during the more intensive periods of writing this book, when I disappeared offline for a few days at a stretch.
As before, I wish to thank all the booksellers throughout the United States and Canada for their continued support, some of whom are mentioned in the acknowledgments of Tokyo Kill. This time I would also like to give a special shout-out to Parisian bookseller Jérôme Toledano for his tireless support of the French editions of the Jim Brodie series, starting with Japantown and Tokyo Kill.
And last but never least, my undying gratitude once again to all my family and friends for backing me up on so many levels.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© BEN SIMMONS
BARRY LANCET’s Japantown, an international thriller, won the prestigious Barry Award for Best First Mystery Novel and was selected by both Suspense Magazine and mystery critic Oline Cogdill as one of the Best Debuts of the Year. His second book, Tokyo Kill, is a finalist for a Shamus Award for Best P.I. Novel of the Year. The third entry in the Jim Brodie series is Pacific Burn.
Lancet moved from California to Tokyo in his twenties, where he has lived for more than two decades. He spent twenty-five years working for one of the country’s largest publishers, developing books on dozens of Japanese subjects from art to Zen—all in English and a
ll distributed in the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world.
His unique position gave him access to many inner circles in cultural, business, and traditional fields most outsiders are never granted. Early in his tenure in the Japanese capital, he was hauled in by the police for a noncriminal infraction and interrogated for three hours, one of the most heated psychological encounters he had faced in Japan to that point. The run-in fascinated him and sparked the idea for a mystery-thriller series based on his growing number of unusual experiences in Japan.
Lancet is based in Japan but makes frequent trips to the States.
For more information, please visit http://barrylancet.com/ or look for Barry on Facebook and Twitter (@barrylancet).
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Japantown
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Table of Contents
Epigraph
Day 1: Deathwatch
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
One Week Later: First Shot
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Day 3 - Tuesday: Deeper Waters
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Days 4 & 5 - Wednesday & Thursday: Kill Order
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Day 6 - Friday: Full-Force Pursuit
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Day 7 - Saturday: The Blackness Beyond
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Days 8 and 9 - Sunday and Monday: Fugu
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Days 10 to 12 - Tuesday to Thursday: What the Devil Pushed Out
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Day 13 - Friday: Without Warning
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Epilogue: The Sun, The Moon, The Truth
About Authenticity
Acknowledgments
About the Author