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. ( )

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!! ( )