Critiques en avant-premièreJakob Halskov

As the first volume in The Tokyo Trilogy, Ripples in the Waters by Lake Kawaguchi traces the sexual road trip of the lonely and neglected Japanese housewife, Tomoko, and the young, vibrant and spontaneous college girl, Ai, who is her counterpart on that riveting journey. It also introduces us to the depressed and suicidal CTO, Takeda, a “sarariman” who, having been made redundant, has lost his raison d’être and is struggling to shield his family from the financial fallout of his failure. Finally, readers can enjoy a suspenseful drama set in the underworld of Japanese organized crime where the fates of Shoko, an ambitious yakuza girl, and Yumiko, daughter of a liquidity-stricken CEO, become entangled in interesting ways.

No Medicine for Falling in Love takes place five years after the first volume of The Tokyo Trilogy.

Tomoko has left her husband and living on her own she is now working for Yumiko who in turn has become CEO of a lifestyle company. While Tomoko is flirting with Yumiko’s new female secretary, Yumiko herself is initiating a steamy office romance with one of her young male employees. Unfortunately, professional headwinds are blowing her way because she stood her ground against an influential but sexist politician, Mr. Kuroda, hellbent on harassing her after being rejected. Hoping to get some help in her brush with Kuroda, she reconnects with her old yakuza friend, Shoko, who has advanced to the powerful position of senior advisor to her clan boss. This proves to be no trivial matter, and Shoko learns just how dangerous powerful men can be when they feel slighted.

A new character, Linda, is introduced. She is a middle-aged Danish high school teacher who is having a midlife crisis after her children left the nest, leaving her and her husband to experiment with an open relationship to save their failing marriage. She decides to visit Tokyo on a working holiday with the hidden agenda of experiencing the erotic underworld of the megacity firsthand to infuse her life with new passion. She gets employed as a hostess at an upscale Roppongi bar called The Library where she encounters several high-ranking Japanese VIP club members, one of whom is the Foreign Ministry Press Secretary, Tanaka. Surprising even herself, she gradually falls in love with him, and her erotic agenda turns into a classic romance with Linda baring her soul and being almost transformed by the other-worldly power of true love.

In Serenade of Souls, the final installment of The Tokyo Trilogy, most of the love stories started in the previous volumes reach their suspenseful conclusions. Another five years have gone by, and Shoko is now the oyabun, or clan head, of the Hashimoto family. Her attempts to revamp and rebrand the crime syndicate as a slick and modern corporation meet with resistance, and unrest is brewing within her organization as a conspiracy to topple her is unfolding.

Linda for her part is back in Tokyo, but she now faces competition in her attempts to win back Tanaka’s heart. She confides in Ai, her old colleague from The Library, who in turn gets back in touch with her ex-boyfriend, Ryo, whom she broke up with in volume one. Finally, Shoko is not only faced with an insurrection, she also has to make a choice between her two former roommates, Kenji and Masayoshi, who are both vying for her romantic attention.