Lady Joker: Volume 1: The Million Copy Bestselling 'Masterpiece of Japanese Crime Fiction'

£8.495
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Lady Joker: Volume 1: The Million Copy Bestselling 'Masterpiece of Japanese Crime Fiction'

Lady Joker: Volume 1: The Million Copy Bestselling 'Masterpiece of Japanese Crime Fiction'

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Price: £8.495
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The rest of this first half of Lady Joker is police and press procedural, along with some behind-the-corporate-curtain scenes. I'm also a little lost on where this book falls. It's set in the 90s so it feels like I could now place it under historical fiction but at the time of original publication (1997 I think), it would be deemed fiction? It's not really a thriller considering the incident wasn't all that thrilling. There's no mystery to the reader either, only to the police and media. The symbols used in this slot are purely card based and that might bring a certain monotonousness to the proceedings. This is primarily because many slots try to use card symbols as ‘fillers’, while Lady Joker bases its entire range of gameplay around these cards.

I heard so much good things about this book and was so excited to be able to final read it, but it just didn't meet my expectations. I probably wouldn't have finished it, if it wasn't an ARC. I found it far too detailed and slow. And to make matters worse that detail did nothing to build a picture of the setting or give me much understanding of Japanese culture. Nor was there atmosphere or tension. It just felt like reams and reams of useless information. It was very long and only started to get going about 90% of the way in, which confused me, as I couldn't see how they could wrap up the story. Some how I missed that this was only volume one of the story! I don't think I'll ever find out how this ends. But even just the first half of Shiroyama's mammoth novel offers a great deal beyond a simple crime. The novel certainly does bog down some in especially the Okada and related happenings, but the main point -- that Hinode has something (or a lot ...) that they have good reason to hide -- certainly comes across. Working the Earth: Synopsis". Books from Japan. Archived from the original on December 15, 2018 . Retrieved December 15, 2018. Meanwhile, Goda only comes to the fore as the novel progresses -- though he clearly will be a major player in the second half of the novel.Much of the second half of this part of the novel is focused on the procedural -- police, press, and also corporate --, detail that some might find slow but that is also revealing about the Japan of those times, and offers a great deal in this regard. Shiroyama's secretary is efficient and shows a bit of initiative, but is decidedly a subordinate figure, while the disabled Lady is little more than a prop; wives, if mentioned at all -- Shiroyama's, Hatano's (Monoi's daughter) --, also are pushed (or flee) very much to the fringes of the action.) They are -- including policeman Handa, who likes the idea of: "playing the innocent at my respectable job as a police officer at MPD when in fact I'm a public enemy ...".

Lady Joker impresses with its scale and patience, only occasionally getting long-winded, particularly in some of the explanations regarding the corporate/criminal-connections and surrounding activity; there's also a bit of unnecessary repetition (mainly about this sort of thing, where repetition unfortunately doesn't make it much clearer). a b "高村薫『マークスの山』が上川隆也主演で初ドラマ化 23日間かけキャスト発表". Oricon News (in Japanese). August 4, 2010. Archived from the original on December 15, 2018 . Retrieved December 15, 2018.A cast or dramatis personae is provided at the start of the book which becomes increasingly useful as following the initial chapters we follow the story from a range of perspectives. When they release him, the kidnappers do have demands -- but Shiroyama is instructed to give the police a different story than their actual demands. Like all literature, readers will take what they want from Takamura’s critique of Japanese society, but at the heart of the epic novel is a gripping crime story where the actual crime itself is almost secondary to the psychological ripples it sends through the boardrooms, police stations, press offices and homes of anyone connected. This is much more of a whydunit than a whodunit — and one that was well worth the wait.”

Little more than the decision to go after Hinode is made before the book jumps ahead again, this time only a few months, to the spring of 1995. In it, Okamura writes about both his recent resignation from the company (along with some forty other employees) -- due to events surrounding the aborted general labor strike planned for 1 February (a significant incident in Japanese labor history) -- as well as that of one Katsuichi Noguchi several years earlier. Lady Joker reads like Don DeLillo’s Underworld rewritten by James Ellroy, or perhaps LA Confidential rewritten by Don DeLillo? What I’m trying to say here is, Lady Joker is EPIC.” The cynical nature of the capitalist society is also represented through the actions of the police. Their determination to try to locate the missing CEO and find the kidnappers is equalled by their resolve to prevent any kind of deal behind the eyes of the public. It is very evident that the people already appear to hold very little trust in business and political leaders. Thirdly there is very much familiarity with the journalists who dedicate their resources to following the key men of Hinode. Their ambition to establish the truth is done with the sole intention of getting that scoop piece of news that they can break ahead of their competitors at other publications. While this novel was written in 1997 in Japan, it can be argued that it’s condemnatory views of the actions of powerful businesses, the police and the press hold a mirror to those of us in the west in the current age will equally recognise. This isn't always the case, and at times the story really flies along. It's not even that there is more action happening, it just eases up on double and triple explanations.

Sound effects used here admittedly leave us wanting for something better. But that rarely messes up the gameplay, and hence, we would rather choose to pay much attention to it (you can always hit the mute button, you know!). All You Need to Know

It's no whodunnit -- though admittedly the question of exactly what the caper involves is still quite open. A swarm of characters, an unorthodox structure, and slow-moving, ultimately irresistible suspense distinguish Lady Joker . . .Like some novels by James Ellroy and Marlon James, Lady Joker is wildly ambitious in scope.” Noguchi is a burakumin, from Japan's 'untouchable' community, born in: "a buraku village, one of the segregated areas where members of feudal outcast communities still lived". An immense and extraordinary feat of writing and translation that has been long-awaited in English, Lady Joker is at once a thriller and a sweeping cultural history of Japan, a love story and a work of poignant social commentary.” The different paths of the characters reflect this particularly well, and where they stand in the 1990s, when the action takes place, is revealing.

Kaoru Takamura ( 髙村 薫, Takamura Kaoru, born 1953) is a Japanese writer from Osaka. She has won numerous Japanese literary awards, including the Mystery Writers of Japan Award, the Japan Adventure Fiction Association Prize, the Naoki Prize, the Yomiuri Prize, and the Noma Literary Prize, and her work has been adapted for film and television. Impressive, very large-scale crime(-and-more) novel of post-war Japan . . . Lady Joker is anything but your usual mystery.” Amusingly, the police officer who runs into him wonders after the brief encounter that is this first Goda-appearance: " Who was that guy ? Who was he to have materialized out of nowhere".)



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