This is a Japanese best-selling police thriller which is as absorbing as it is fascinating, revealing much of Japanese culture. Mikame, the detective-protagonist, is the hub around which several complex sub-plots revolve, ranging from his marriage and relationship with a vanished teenage daughter, to his role as media relations officer dealing with hostile young journalists eager to undermine an authoritarian police system.
The plot is concentrated in a few short days building up to the climactic visit of a chief inspector from Tokyo on the anniversary of the kidnapping and murder of a seven-year-old girl some years previously. What starts out as a somewhat cynical media exercise on the part of the police quickly becomes complicated by the inexplicable behaviour of the child's father, who refuses to cooperate. Under pressure to please his superiors, Mikame starts digging around the old case in an effort to find something which might induce the old man to comply. He discovers hidden seams of dishonesty and corruption deep in the police force itself and is compelled to make choices between authority and justice. The translation is flawless and while the pace is slower than other works of this genre, the unfamiliar (at least to westerners) environment and the various layers of the plot serve to dispel any boredom.
O.H. (Ireland, 2017)