Tokyo Noir: In and Out of Japan’s Underworld

Journalist Adelstein follows up The Last Yakuza with another illuminating blend of memoir and reportage. For 12 years, Adelstein covered the crime beat at Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, focusing on organized crime. In late 2008, a purge of the top bosses in Japan’s largest yakuza group—including Tadamasa Goto, who’d developed a particular grudge against Adelstein—left the reporter feeling adrift. He rebranded as a private eye, investigating yakuza front companies and mob involvement in the largely Korean-run pachinko parlor business. Then, in 2011, Adelstein was drawn back to journalism by the Tōhoku tsunami and subsequent meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. His inquiry into the power company’s gross negligence pointed to collusion with the yakuza. Threaded throughout the narrative are more personal matters, including Adelstein’s descriptions of mourning one of his best friends and dealing with the discovery of a cancerous tumor on his liver. As always, the author’s ability to boil down Japan’s complex sociopolitical dynamics in sharp, often-humorous prose impresses (“I don’t think most of the customers there were seeking spiritual enlightenment,” he deadpans about a strip club supposedly founded on Buddhist principles). The account ends in 2017, when he took vows to become a Buddhist priest, and readers will be left hoping he details that experience in his next book. For true crime fans, this is a treat. (Oct.)