Tokyo Swindlers

Shinjo (Narrow House) weaves an enthralling tale of white-collar crime in this top-shelf financial thriller. Seven years ago, Tsujimoto Takumi’s visit to his parents’ home in Tokyo ended in tragedy: his father’s company had just gone bankrupt after he was duped by a scam artist, and the despairing patriarch set fire to the house, killing himself, as well as Takumi’s mother, wife, and son. Now Takumi has found employment with Harrison Yamanaka, a gangster specializing in real estate swindles. Yamanaka’s m.o. is to hire someone to impersonate a property’s owner to arrange a phony sale of the land to a developer or other wealthy target. Takumi works with the impersonator to make sure they can maintain the fraud long enough to get the billions of yen at stake transferred to accounts controlled by Yamanaka. The scheme comes under scrutiny from Detective Tatsu, an elderly but dogged investigator who’s seeking one last victory after alcoholism and stress have pushed him to the brink of kidney and liver failure. Tatsu’s relentless pursuit of Takumi and Yamanaka leads to a series of shocking twists, and Shinjo expertly balances suspense and characterization to raise the emotional stakes. This is masterful. (Nov.)