A riveting true-life tale of newspaper noir and Japanese organized crime from an American investigative journalist who “pulls the curtain back on … [an] element of Japanese society that few Westerners ever see” (San Francisco Examiner). Jake Adelstein is the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police Press Club, where for twelve years he covered … for twelve years he covered the dark side of Japan: extortion, murder, human trafficking, fiscal corruption, and of course, the yakuza. But when his final scoop exposed a scandal that reverberated all the way from the neon soaked streets of Tokyo to the polished Halls of the FBI and resulted in a death threat for him and his family, Adelstein decided to step down. Then, he fought back.
In Tokyo Vice he delivers an unprecedented look at Japanese culture and searing memoir about his rise from cub reporter to seasoned journalist with a price on his head.
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When both Paris Match and the NPR book list highlight books on the same topic, I generally think that means I should read up, doubly so when the topic is anything to do with Japan these days. NPR suggested People Who Eat Darkness and Paris Match suggested Tokyo Vice. The former wasn’t available at the library, so I went with the latter, by Jake …
I generally enjoy books about Japan and when I saw this book was about being a journo in Japan, I was excited because one of my past roles was working in radio news. While I did enjoy the bits of this book that delved into information about sex crimes, yakuza culture, and police beat culture; the book drags. It really needed some editing to …