Japanese Crime

Every time of year, or almost, is a good time to read crime fiction for me. Except between August and October, when I read horror. Anyway, I recently started reading Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka. I last year for various reasons, one of them being that I have never read Japanese crime fiction. I am expanding my horizons. So far, so great: it's smart, witty, suitably dark and it has heart too. I should probably add exotic, at least compared to what I am used to in crime fiction. It makes me want to visit Japan one day. In some way, maybe I am already visiting it, through the pages of this novel. In any case, if I carry on enjoying it, I will read more Japanese crime fiction.

Three Assassins at Hand

I blogged before about my wish to get my hands on Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka. Before I go exotic sometimes when I read crime fiction. Well, my local bookshop ordered it for me and I purchased it last week. Japanese crime fiction, this will be a first for me. But I will not read it just yet. I have plenty to go through in my to be read list before the end of summer, when I switch to a very different genre (you know the one). But I digress. My brother PJ is going on holiday to Japan again, so I suggested he should read it too.

Three Assassins in the Bookshop

 I blogged here and there about Japanese crime writer Kotaro Isaka, who wrote the novel that inspired Bullet Train, a wacky film which I enjoyed thoroughly. I enjoyed it enough to want to buy the source novel and, while I wasat it, the first novel of what is a trilogy. So I ordered Three Assassins from... the bookshop. I could have gone through Amazon, but I wanted to support my favourite local business. So... yeah. I received a phone call from the bookshop two days ago, saying the book had arrived. I don't know when I will be able to go there and get my hands on it, but I'm am happily surprised it arrived so quickly, in less than a week.

Looking for Three Assassins

Don't panic reading the title of this post, I mean figuratively speaking, of course. If you read this post from earlier this month, you know that I recently watched and enjoyed d Bullet Train. Which is based on a novel by Kotaro Isaka. it is actually the second book of a trilogy, starting with Three Assassins (or 3 Assassins, I have seen the title spelled both ways). Okay, so this novel will not feature extensively a train, which is one of the appeals of the film, but all the same, I love crime fiction and I want to read the trilogy in order. I could order it on Amazon, but I think I will buy it at the local bookshop.