Tokyo Vice

From the one American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police press membership: a singular, firsthand, revelatory take a look at Japanese tradition from the underbelly up.

At nineteen, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in quest of peace and tranquility. What he bought was a lifetime of crime . . . crime reporting, that’s, on the prestigious Yomiuri Shinbun. For twelve years of eighty-hour workweeks, he lined the seedy aspect of Japan, the place extortion, homicide, human trafficking, and corruption are as acquainted as ramen noodles and sake. However when his closing scoop introduced him nose to nose with Japan’s most notorious yakuza boss-and the specter of dying for him and his family-Adelstein determined to step down . . . momentarily. Then, he fought again.

In Tokyo Vice, Adelstein tells the riveting, usually humorous story of his journey from an inexperienced cub reporter-who made rookie errors like getting right into a martial-arts battle with a senior editor-to a daring, investigative journalist with a worth on his head. With its vivid, visceral descriptions of crime in Japan and an exploration of the world of modern-day yakuza that even few Japanese ever see, Tokyo Vice is a deeply thought-provoking e book: equal components cultural expose, true crime, and hard-boiled noir.