Michael PronkoRecensioni

Michael Pronko is an American ex-pat who lives and writes in Japan. He has come out with a series of "cop books" featuring Detective Hiroshi Shimizu. Hiroshi would prefer to sit at his computer doing forensic accounting investigations, but sometimes gets called out into the field. He has side kicks to help with that, of course.

When the book begins, we have Patrick Walsh sneaking into what was once his apartment in Tokyo to abduct his two daughters, Jenna and Kiri. Patrick had been sent to Wyoming for work, and stayed a bit longer than one would have expected. While he was gone, his wife, Miyuki, got some pictures in the mail of Patrick in compromising positions with a blonde. She has filed for divorce. She's out when Patrick sneaks in. But, he is interrupted by the entrance of Taiga, the babysitter. Patrick plonks him one and leaves Taiga in a room with the girls' grandmother. A few hours later, Miyuki comes home to find Taiga in a coma and her mother dead.

The police get on it, and the first thing that comes to mind is to track Patrick down. Just about the same time, Leung, who runs a financial firm called the Nine Dragons, is found murdered in his office. Are the two crimes related?

We go back and forth between the police's trying to find Patrick and his daughters, Patrick's trying to smuggle his daughters out of the country and back to Wyoming, and various activities on the part of several sets of shady characters, who might also have some stake in Patrick's activities.

Well, I'll stop here. This book was part police procedural and part thriller, and rather engaging. It probably deserves to be listed as *** .

Book 5 in the Detective Hiroshi series, it helps to read the previous books to get a better understanding of the usual characters. Nonetheless, the descriptive story is a standalone. The detective and police procedural story is set in Tokyo, delving into the mystery from various perspectives.


I received a free copy and am leaving a review voluntarily.
Thank you to AuthorsXP, Booksprout, and author.

WHAT A RIVETING STORY TO SINK YOUR TEETH INTO! I could hardly read fast enough to see what happened next. Hiroshi still longed for Linda after she left him high and dry, but there were only so many ways he could explain why when he solved a case that he would celebrate with his co-workers. I liked his dogged determination to capture the person throwing drunk men in front of a train. I suffered with young Michiko struggling to get time with her dad as her mom had died and she was lonely. I cheered when she took defense lesson as a child, but as an adult, she was kidnapped and sexual abused.

I can't believe that I missed the first four books!! I liked the detectives, but it was very hard to keep the names right, I love that Patrick flew from Hawaii to Japan to get his two littles girl since his wife filed for a divorce once she saw him with a blonde when he was supposed to be working in Wyoming and he had been gone for A YEAR! All Patrick wanted was to keep his young daughters safe and figure a way to get his wife out of Japan as they all were in danger. Then his boss is murdered and both the police and three thugs in black suits wanted him, with his mother-in-law dead HE IS CHARGED FOR HER MURDER! The action is non-stop and I couldn't put this book down!!

This is a sort of police procedural kind of book, but it's set in Japan with Japanese characters. The author is an American by birth, but has lived in Japan for the past twenty or so years.

So, we begin with a fancy executive, Shigeru Onizuka, falling off the edge of an office building, in a drunken stupor. But, was he pushed or did he fall over the edge by himself? There was a fence protecting the edge of the building, but the fence had clearly been cut through. But, there was no sign of the shears that would be needed to cut the fence. Several years earlier, a young woman who used to work for Onizuka, Maryu Yamase, had plunged from the very same place. Coincidence or not?

It seems that Onizuka was an abusive, bullying boss. He might have essentially driven Maryu Yamase to suicide, or he might have arranged things to save face of one kind or another. He had been reported repeatedly for abusing all of his employees, especially the young women. So, perhaps Onizuka was pushed by one of Maryu's relatives, or perhaps her boy friend, who was an American jazz musician living and working in Tokyo.

Well, the story unfolds and eventually Det. Hiroshi Shimizu and his cronies untangle the mess. It was a pretty fun book.

I know very little about Japan apart from what I've learned from old War and Kung-Fu movies plus a deranged game show in the '80s called Endurance presented by a bald Australian bloke on late night UK Television. Oh and not to forget the stop animation Godzilla films. My son also pointed out that I'm not to forget Pokemon. Sushi - there's another thing I know about Japan - the NOT Raw fish snacks that took a bit of getting used to. Maybe I know more about Japan than I first thought but it's still not a whole lot.

So, I didn't know what to expect from this collection of essays on life in Tokyo. My experience of Tokyoites is the camera wielding, short in stature, polite, well dressed people who form an ever present tourist group on the streets of London.

Yoko Ono - something else I know about Japan

This is a well written informative collection that allows one to see what goes on in the mind of a westerner while he lives and works in a foreign city among the mixture of ancient customs and modern technology that forms Japan's most famous city.

Each chapter is long enough to be illuminating and short enough such that it doesn't get repetitive or boring.

I read it from front to back but you could just as easily read each chapter in any order depending on whatever takes your fancy.

A delightful look into how a city ticks and also gives some insight into how the world of Pronko's Detective Hiroshi is created.

A thoroughly enjoyable read

This is my first experience with a book set in Japan and It was interesting reading about a different culture and the interactions between the characters.

I admit I initially struggled with the Japanese names and places and I also had to look up far more words than i would usually do with a British or American novel but this added to the feeling that I was learning something whilst being entertained.

The plot developed at a nice pace before ramping up near the end and the characters were sufficiently human to allow a glimpse into their darker sides.

All-in-all a decent story that sets up the scene for more stories in the murky Tokyo underworld

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book as a Member Giveaway. No compensation was received other than the chance to read this work.

The Last Train is the start of a new mystery series set in Toyko. The lead, a detective who is trained as an accountant but ended up technically in the homicide division, is tasked with using his English-language skills to investigate what initially looks like a suicide.

The story is fairly gripping, and while certain small details are repeated over and over (like folding shirt cuffs over three times), it doesn't really detract from the story. There were a few characters that seemed like they were just there to provide a convenient distraction during the story, but aside from those few and far-between scenes, the story had a good overall pacing and consistent feel.

Recommended for those who enjoy noir-type mysteries, are interested in Japanese drinking culture, or enjoy murder stories in general.½

The third in a series, but I haven't actually read the first two so I don't know if I was missing any back stories. This is a competent enough thriller, fast-paced enough to keep you turning the pages, and with chapters only 3 or 4 pages in length it rattles along. The basic plot involves people trafficking, pornography and something to do with cryptocurrencies, and there are the usual car chases and baddies to tick all the boxes.

Decent enough, but doesn't really stand out from the pack.

Tightly plotted murder mystery provides insights in Tokyo and it’s criminal element
4.5 stars

When violent intruders interrupt a film shoot in a Tokyo pornography studio, they brutally murder three people but overlook a young actress hiding in the cavernous building.
Sukanya is an illegal Thai immigrant who was smuggled into Japan and lured into the business with the promise of big money and transit to the United States. She makes her escape with cash from the dead director’s wallet and a leather bag containing a computer and iPad. Penniless and friendless, she wanders aimlessly through the streets of the megalopolis; though she’s lost, she’s not undetected. Unknown to her, the digital devices she’s taken contain sensitive information as well as trackers that reveal her location.
Kenta, a shady businessman and loan shark wants those devices back. The information they hold could compromise him and his relationship with Yoshitaka Kirino, the ruthless mastermind of the criminal enterprise he’s involved in. Kenta assigns three street punks the task of recovering the priceless data as well as the only person who witnessed the crime.
Detective Hiroshi Shimizu was trained as an accountant in America. Now he’s a Tokyo detective specializing in deciphering the finances of criminal activities by examining bank records, statements, spreadsheets, and cryptocurrency. Money trails extend “like spokes from every murder,” and Shimizu has the expertise to grasp their implications.
As Sukanya tries to elude the men sent by Kenta, she’s assisted by Chiho, a young Japanese woman who empathizes with her predicament. Together they manage to stay one step ahead of their pursuers. But for how long? It’s a race to see if Hiroshi and his colleagues can unravel the motive and identify the murderer(s) before they catch up with Sukanya and the evidence in her possession.
While being a tightly plotted, well-structured murder mystery, Tokyo Traffic, provides insights into criminal activity surrounding pornography, the sex trade, human trafficking, and to some extent how organized crime uses cryptocurrencies to transfer and conceal profits from illegal activities.
Equally engaging is author Michael Pronko’s knowledge of contemporary Japanese culture including food, fashion, entertainment, and the environs of the world’s largest city.
Pronko’s characters are fully developed, his dialogue is authentic, and his writing is clear and concise. An ambitious novel, Tokyo Traffic at times feels bogged down with the excessive Tokyo travelogue, a confusion of characters, and plot minutiae; however, realistic detective work, action, romance, and even humor make for an overall entertaining and enlightening story.

This is part police procedural and part thriller. At least I think that's how one would characterize it. It's set in Japan. It seems someone, perhaps a derelict, was murdered in an alley with an expert slice of a samurai sword. Then a prominent American diplomat, Bernard Mattson was found dead in his house as a result of a sword cut. Perhaps, in Mattson's case, it was a suicide?

Mattson, it seems had spent many years living in Japan and had essentially become integrated in the daily life of the country, having taken Japanese wives, the first, Setsuko, whom he later divorced to marry Sachi. Mattson and Sachi had a daughter together, Jamie.

Jamie Mattson lived with her parents in japan until she was 13. Then her mother took her off to America, and she never saw her father alive again. Jamie comes back to Japan to attend her father's funeral and to pack up his effects and dispose of them appropriately.

But, all of a sudden, Jamie herself is threatened by violence of one kind and another. Apparently, among her father's papers are some that certain people would like to keep hidden.

So then, we have a kind of Perils of Pauline (yes I'm sufficiently old to know about such things) adventure in which Jamie is threatened and escapes...repeatedly. A somewhat interesting adventure.

A very good mystery. A little more violent than I was ready for, but fast paced and very engaging. It really had me on the edge of my seat. It did make me want to reread the first of this series. I didn't remember quite as well as I would have liked. I have always enjoyed Michael Pronko's essays about Japan. I'm delighted to find him branching out so successfully. I highly recommend.

thriller, law-enforcement, international-crime-and-mystery, PTSD, Japan, cultural-exploration, theft, murder

A fascinating look at the differences and similarities of cops and the countries/populations they serve. Homicide Det. Hiroshi in Tokyo has hidden himself away in his office as he remains unable to deal with the problems begun a year ago when he very nearly died on a case that caused many problems for the men in his department. Now he's forced into a very messy case involving diplomats, people murdered horribly with ritual blades, the Americans, and multiple thefts of sensitive materials. All this and the diplomat's beautiful Japanese American daughter from New York. A very compelling mystery thriller!
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Raked Gravel Press via NetGalley. Thank you!

I hear that there is a new book in this series coming. I can't wait! I have always loved Michael Pronko's essays. I put off reading this because I was afraid he would fall off his pedestal when he started writing fiction. I needn't have worried. I was immediately hooked. This book is quite the page turner. I was fascinated by the idea of a sympathetic villain. I was surprised at one point when two Japanese girls climbed into the bath and soaped up. My experience has been that soaping and rinsing happens before one gets in the bath in Japan. Other than that I was completely captivated. I highly recommend this wonderful mystery. Thank you to Mr Pronko, his publisher and NetGalley for sharing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This tension-filled, atmospheric, and evil-infused thriller set in one of my favorite places in the world was so worth waiting for. All about money—the getting and losing of it, the revenge over it, the need, the greed, and the kinks it puts in people—this plot engine was well decorated with great characters, living through actions and not flat descriptions. Loved the dramatic irony of knowing the villainess while the characters do not--her horrendous secret, once revealed, went a long way to understanding her motivation. Pronko's feel for Japanese culture, where business is done via connection and (often "inside") information in Japan, Mitsuko’s sidewinding sinuousness, strength, and flexibility—both physical and psychological—made her the perfect villain. The leitmotif of her lotus perfume fit the settings with bar-hostess luxuries, “delivery health girls,” love hotels, and famous coffee shops like the Almond Roppongi, that give a full-immersion reading experience.
Details, like how special chopsticks are used at certain accident scenes, the role of drugs-in-drinks, the mind-boggling Venus Fort, a foreign-city-themed shopping center for women, or the Maman spider sculpture in the middle of an outdoor plaza, add to the wonderful fascination of this world.
Expat life--the Japanese yearning for it in America—and American indulgence in it in Japan, was brilliantly painted.
No car chases, but great on-foot chases! And very clever ways of describing the foreign scene with words that make sense to Westerners: “organic chaos of old Tokyo”; or, of the neon marquees in Tokyo, they “climbed the buildings like electric ivy.”
The “chikan” plot thread was spotty and I didn’t get its role in the whole plot, and, being familiar with Tokyo, I found characters’ names the same as well-known areas disconcerting (Ueno, Shibuya, Sugamo, Osaki (just one letter off) but otherwise this page-turner made me hope for a new Pronko novel soon!

Being a huge fan of Japanese crime fiction I admit to being particularly intrigued by THE LAST TRAIN. Set in Tokyo the viewpoint of this novel, written by an ex-pat American professor of American Literature at Meiji Gakuin University who has now lived in that city for twenty years, was a large part of this appeal.

Whatever elements there are that feed into THE LAST TRAIN, they have combined to create a fascinating police procedural / serial killer with a reason novel interwoven with aspects of Japanese tradition and culture. Things get underway pretty quickly, when we're introduced to a victim being led away from a bar district, absolutely hammered drunk, only to have him fall in front of an underground train. Obviously the first part of the investigation is to decide if this American man was an extreme form of suicide or a murder. Enter our detective hero - Detective Hiroshi Shimizu, a man who remembers fondly his time studying in America. Filled with regret over the loss of his foreign girlfriend, he is pulled into a murder investigation in a most unexpected manner. Shimizu is a white collar crime investigator - much more at home in the world of financial shenanigans and spreadsheets, it's via his mentor, Takamatsu that he finds himself included in a murder investigation that rapidly becomes a serial killer hunt. When his Takamatsu goes missing Shimizu teams up with ex-sumo wrestler Sakaguchi to track down that most unusual of things - a female serial killer.

The outsider's viewpoint really works well in the way that Tokyo life is observed and described. There's lots of little gems of information imparted as the action proceeds - from the food / the night life / the way that the nightclub and hostess world works, and there's great humour. It was impossible not to laugh out loud at sumo-sized thugs setting off overweight alarms in lifts, and an elderly man prepared to use machinery lathes as a lethal weapon if necessary.

Interestingly, even though it's an outsider viewpoint, it has an intrinsically Japanese feel to the novel - there's much to learn about the society, there's much to learn about the people, and there's much to admire in creating a female serial killer who is believable, and, more importantly sympathetic understandable.

Even with a little bit of heavy lifting towards the end dragging everything into line, THE LAST TRAIN is a really good novel for fans of crime fiction in general, and Asian crime in particular.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-last-train-michael-pronko

This is a very interesting mystery. I learned things about Japan that I never knew. I liked Detective Hiroshi. He was a great character. This had many twists and turns. It was hard not to like the bad guy in this book also. I hope to read more books in this series. I received a copy of this book from Smith Publicity for a fair and honest opinion that I gave of my own free will.

***This book was reviewed for the Online Book Club***

Moments and Motions is a collection of essays by Michael Pronko, a Western transplant to Tokyo, where he teaches at university, and writes essays on life in the techno-sprawl that is Japan’s capital city. The book is broken into several sections, each with a distinct theme- Surfaces, Miniatures, Constructs, Quaking, and Serenities.

Pronko's collection is a beautiful tapestry of cultural awareness. He displays a willingness to learn about and embrace the culture he has chosen to live in. I love reading about other cultures, immersing myself in them. I more favour ancient Japanese history/culture than modern, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection. I will say, they did help me realise, with my demophobia, that I should never visit modern Tokyo, with its vast population, and perpetual crowds. Likewise, I wouldn't be able to cope with sensory overload. However, I enjoyed reading his accounts. I used to teach and design classes on different cultures to promote cultural awareness, learn to embrace other cultures, and often prep to visit different cultures. If I still taught, Pronko's book would become required reading.

I really liked the Wallace Stevens poem at the beginning of Epigraph. It expresses a very Japanese sentiment. I did find the word 'Tokyoites’ to be very grating, though. It just didn't have a proper flow to my ears or mind.

🎻🎻🎻🎻🎻 Highly recommended

I really liked this a lot. It took me a long time to finish because I only dipped into it when I had not much time to read. This book works well for those that want to just read a little at a time. Lots of good stopping places, though the material is so interesting it is hard to put down. These short essays are a wonderful look at a very different society. Michael Pronko does a terrific job of observing without strong prejudices for or against what he sees. A very good reporting job and a fascinating topic. I will definitely be looking for more by Mr Pronko.

Michael Pronko has a natural talent to spin out words and astute perceptions in concise, steady and refreshing prose wherein every word counts and nothing is extra. This is quite in evidence in his most recent tome Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo where we are taken to various areas that few have seen and savored.

His approach to writing the essays about Tokyo and its inhabitants is an unexpected delight, both clever and insightful where he depicts not only the blemishes of Japanese culture but also the finer things it has to offer. On the other hand, as he mentions, he may be very much in Tokyo, however, he would never be of Tokyo which has never completely normalized for him.

Divided into five parts, the collection covers a great deal of ground and is drawn from Pronko's later columns in Newsweek Japan that were published in the four years after the 2011 earthquake and emanate from his daily train rides, each devoted to a particular subject matter in a delicious random way providing readers with fascinating portraits of Tokyoites. A glossary at the end of the collection is provided translating some of the Japanese words that are sprinkled throughout the essays. As Pronko mentions, these words are better left in their original Japanese as they work better.

Quite impressive is Pronko's familiarity with Tokyoites although he was born in Kansas City, which no doubt is a very different world. Incidentally, he has also lived in Beijing, China for three years.

One of the joys in reading these essays is that the language is precisely crafted. For example, Pronko is frugal with his adjectives but nonetheless draws lively, animated and sometimes comical pictures concerning a variety of topics. These are filled with details such as finding a language to converse that “can be confusing as interpreting the dance of a honeybee,” being stopped four times by the police while biking when wearing ratty jeans and a frayed shirt, watching a young woman trying to pick up her cell phone on a crowded train where people are packed like sardines, interpreting Japanese body language, the Japanese obsession with form filling, the skill in squeezing stuff into one place and learning space conservation, plastic recycling, getting lost in Tokyo where you need more than a map or GPS to find your way and a host of others.

One essay that I found particularly fascinating concerns the preoccupation with cleanliness where as Pronko states: “Forty million people in the Tokyo, Yokohama and surrounding areas should mean forty million producers of trash. Yet, it feels as if a giant vacuum cleaner and sponger are run over the city every couple hours.”

Another that I can personally relate to is, “The Language Dance.” I live in Montreal, Quebec where people converse both in French and English. Very often if you are an English speaking person you can start a conversation in French and wind up speaking in English as the person you are talking to speaks a better English than your French, even though French may be their mother tongue. Pronko describes this similar experience he encounters in Tokyo where he describes the ritual language dance which entails beginning a conversation about the weather in Japanese, then a few questions as to where he is from and why he is in Japan, and gradually, the other person inserts a word or two in English to kind of test the waters, and if he catches the hint and asks a question in English then they switch to English.

Splendidly produced, Pronko has provided his readers with an engaging view of Tokyo life and to quote him, “after living and teaching in Tokyo for many years he still feels that its careening meanings and beguiling contradictions continue to multiply and beg to be written about.”

This is a fascinating collection of short pieces about different aspects of life in Tokyo. It touches on food, buildings, stairs, escalators, pachinko, department stores, trains, rain, and so on and so on. Each morsel is well observed and will make you want to hop on the first plane to Tokyo, confident that you now have a little more insight that will allow you to enjoy and understand it just a bit more.

I found Michael Pronko's collection of short stories about his time in Japan fascinating. It reminded me of the stories I heard from my brother-in-law from the year he spent in Japan studying and teaching English. I loved the focus on the little details of life in Tokyo and felt it gave me a feel for Toyko that normal travelogues don't come close to conveying. I think anyone who is interested in travel or Japanese culture would like this book.
I received this book for free from ARC in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Reading Michael Pronko’s collection of essays, Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens, is a delightfully enlightening experience, especially for someone who has never traveled to Japan (or anywhere else in Asia). While it might go without saying that there are a plethora of significant cultural differences between the United States and Japan – and in this case, more specifically, Tokyo – reading about Pronko’s experiences and observations as a long-term expat living in Tokyo provides an insider’s view of what life is really like in this pulsing, densely populated Asian metropolis.

Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens includes dozens of richly detailed vignettes, each one an ultra-zoomed snapshot of local customs and peculiarities. Some topics might seem mundane at first, but even subjects as ordinary as, for example, riding the subway, become exotic as Pronko reveals the unique way in which Tokyoites move as a collective group, ever mindful to not take up more space than is absolutely essential. Other topics are inherently more alien, from an American point of view; like the necessity of obtaining a hanko, or personal stamp that serves as a one-of-a-kind means of “signing” important documents. Some essays, like A Little to the Side and Motion Sickness, portray an admittedly less than favorable, yet uncomfortably palpable environment, giving vertigo-stricken individuals pause when considering a trip to the area. Furthermore, many Japanese customs, for which there are simply no easily translatable American equivalents, are woven throughout the book, making it an even more substantial contribution to the illumination of the Tokyo way of life.

This little book of short, easy to read essays delivers to its readers an education about the cultural variances between Americans and Tokyoites that only someone who has lived and worked in Tokyo for an extended period of time, as Pronko has, could deliver. Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens gives its readers a realistic impression of the city, and what it physically feels like to be there, while also firmly establishing a sense of curiosity and wonder, and a strong desire to see all Tokyo has to offer for oneself. Reading this assortment of essays would likely better prepare a prospective traveler for a journey to Tokyo than would reading any run of the mill guidebook.