Among the most unsettling words that can come at the end of a 600-page procedural crime thriller are: “End of Volume One”.
Kaoru Takamura’s Lady Joker has a long backstory. This translation comes almost a quarter-century after the book was first published in 1997. The much-acclaimed author, known as the “Queen of Mysteries”, has never been translated—at all, apparently, to say nothing of into English. The book has twice been adapted for film and TV, is taught in Japanese classrooms—and is based on a notorious true-life unsolved case of corporate kidnapping and product blackmail from 1984 perpetrated by a group which called themselves the “Mystery Man with 21 Faces”.

Is Lady Joker worth the build-up? It’s hard not to feel like a TV reviewer being asked to pass judgement on a new miniseries after only the first (extra-long, perhaps) episode. But, on the basis of what remains an incomplete reading, the answer would be yes.
The TV comparison is hard to shake. The book is structured into chapters and sections, each focusing on a single character (of which there are a great many). Scenes, episodes, points-of-view: it’s all there. The sense of effectively watching while reading is both surreal and (literally) entrancing. The story, which is anyway a very slow burn, hardly matters.
A good portion of this first volume, perhaps half, is background, going back to 1947, more than four decades—closer to five—before the real action starts, back to a murky post-War period when Hinode Beer is trying to re-build itself literally from the ruins. There are some layoffs, and references to both socialist labor unions and, more significantly, the burakumin (Japan’s version of a hereditary underclass). A letter of complaint is sent, and ignored. Several decades later, ramifications of the incident and whispers of still-prevalent anti-burakumin bigotry manifest themselves in a broken engagement involving the daughter of a senior Hinode exec, a failed job application at Hinode, a fatal car accident and a visit from what might be yakuza.
This history, and a lifetime of social injustice, rankles a struggling and semi-retired pharmacy owner who together with other malcontents he knows from visits to the racetrack, concocts a plot to kidnap Hinode president Kyosuke Shiroyama and blackmail the company. (This might be a plot spoiler except that given the true story which inspired the novel, everyone knows that this is what will happen.) One of them, a truck driver, has a disabled daughter known as Lady, whence the group’s nom de guerre.
Exactly why the various participants embark on this apparently nihilistic course of action remains (so far) unclear.
Somewhere around the midway point of this first volume, the key is turned on the plot and the perpetrators disappear, their points-of-view replaced by those of Shiroyama and his corporate circle, cops and reporters of various levels who are befuddled by developments and chasing the story. Needless to say, unsavoury relationships abound.
Although well-plotted, the plot emerges from the multitude of fragmented and kaleidoscopic character vignettes. Lady Joker is a psychological thriller in that everything comes from the interaction of personalities, a large number of very complex personalities, rather than action. There is a temptation to sketch out the sort of diagram one sees on cork boards in police shows, with pictures, scrawled notes and bits of string connecting one person of interest to another. But Takamura quite masterfully makes this unnecessary: the characters are fleshed out, the matrix of relations is clarified and the holes get filled in. Corporate offices, police stations, newsrooms, restaurants and golf courses all come into focus.
There are several things about this collection of characters that seem odd: although each has a distinct personality, all are sketched in various shades of gray, either Japanese corporate gray or working class gray. No one stands out, no one appears flashy. None would merit a second look if passed on the sidewalk. But most surprising given the author’s gender, is that none of the characters, none of the main ones anyway, are women. Women appear, of course, but as wives, daughters and secretaries who, on the whole (and so far! that recurring but necessary caveat), are largely reactive.
Lady Joker contains no small amount of social commentary, most of it less subtle than its portrayal of an entirely masculine world. The book’s Japan is one of corporate keiretsu in bed with organized crime, with police and reporters looking on and following interests which are not always the most salubrious. Corporate get-togethers are held on the golf course; sushi and sake lubricate under-the-table agreements. Some (thankfully relatively minor parts) of this, such as references to some of the (purported) economic reforms of the time, can be a bit obscure.
At a time when TV series are released all at once for binge-watching, not having the second half immediately available is somewhat (and perhaps deliberately) annoying. But at least I don’t have to worry about revealing any plot spoilers: I haven’t a clue how it turns out. Stay tuned.
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