“A novel that portrays with devastating immensity how those on the dark fringes of society can be consumed by the darkness of their own hearts.”
—Yoko Ogawa, author of The Memory PoliceThis second half of
Lady Joker, by Kaoru Takamura, the Grand Dame of Japanese crime fiction, concludes the breathtaking saga introduced in Volume I.
Inspired by the real-life Glico-Morinaga kidnapping, an unsolved case that terrorized Japan for two years,
Lady Joker reimagines the circumstances of this watershed episode in modern Japanese history and brings into riveting focus the lives and motivations of the victims, the perpetrators, the heroes and the villains. As the shady networks linking corporations to syndicates are brought to light, the stakes rise, and some of the professionals we have watched try to fight their way through this crisis will lose everything—some even their lives. Will the culprits ever be brought to justice? More importantly—what is justice?
"Inspired by the real-life Glico-Morinaga kidnapping, an unsolved case that terrorized Japan for two years, Lady Joker reimagines the circumstances of this watershed episode in modern Japanese history and brings into riveting focus the lives and motivations of the victims, the perpetrators, the heroes and the villains. As the shady networks linking corporations to syndicates are brought to light, the stakes rise, and some of the professionals we have watched try to fight their way through this crisis will lose everything--some even their lives. Will the culprits ever be brought to justice? More importantly--what is justice?"--
Praise for Lady Joker, Volume 2
A Ms. Magazine Most Anticipated Book of 2022
Praise for Lady Joker, Volume 1
“Hinging on a kidnapping plot, Takamura’s prismatic heist novel offers a broad indictment of capitalist society.”
—The New York Times
“[
Lady Joker] is a work you get immersed in, like a sprawling 19th century novel or a TV series like “The Wire.” It reveals its world in rich polyphonic detail. Inspired by a real-life case, it takes us inside half a dozen main characters, follows scads of secondary ones and enters bars and boardrooms we could never otherwise go . . . Yet for all its digressions, Lady Joker casts a page-turning spell.”
—John Powers, NPR’s Fresh Air
“Like Ellroy’s American Tabloid and Carr’s
The Alienist, the book uses crime as a prism to examine dynamic periods of social history . . . Takamura’s blistering indictment of capitalism, corporate corruption and the alienation felt by characters on both sides of the law from institutions they once believed would protect them resonates surprisingly with American culture.”
—Paula Woods, Los Angeles Times 
