Overview
With The Sleeping Dragon, Miyuki Miyabe, Japan's #1 best-selling mystery author, returns to the spare, hard-boiled style of her debut book in English, the cult classic All She Was Worth. Add in a touch of the paranormal, and this noir tale of suspense is on track to garner reviews as glowing as those she's received in the past -- Land to win her a legion of new readers.
A fierce typhoon strikes Tokyo one night, flooding the city streets. Someone has unlawfully removed a manhole cover, and a little boy out searching for a lost pet goes missing, possibly drowned in the sewers. Is it murder or accidental? These events bring together a struggling journalist named Kosaka, who is grappling with the ghosts of his past, and two young men who may or may not have psychic powers. The three form an unwilling team not only to search for the lost boy, but also to solve a second mystery involving Kosaka's former fiancée.
Kosaka's career and personal life have stagnated since his breakup with Saeko a few years earlier, and locked him in an emotional impasse. Each of his two reluctant comrades--Shinji and Naoya--is struggling to come to terms with his unique powers ("the dragon within"). While Shinji wants to use his abilities to help others, Naoya seeks to hide his. Kosaka, meanwhile, doubts the young men's ability, all-too-clearly aware that such claims of psychic knowledge of the crimes could in reality mask a criminal culpability. But then all three are forced into an unsteady alliance to try to save the life of someone close to Kosaka.
Synopsis
With The Sleeping Dragon, Miyuki Miyabe, Japan's #1 best-selling mystery author, returns to the spare, hard-boiled style of her debut book in English, the cult classic All She Was Worth. Add in a touch of the paranormal, and this noir tale of suspense is on track to garner reviews as glowing as those she's received in the past — Land to win her a legion of new readers.
A fierce typhoon strikes Tokyo one night, flooding the city streets. Someone has unlawfully removed a manhole cover, and a little boy out searching for a lost pet goes missing, possibly drowned in the sewers. Is it murder or accidental? These events bring together a struggling journalist named Kosaka, who is grappling with the ghosts of his past, and two young men who may or may not have psychic powers. The three form an unwilling team not only to search for the lost boy, but also to solve a second mystery involving Kosaka's former fiancée.
Kosaka's career and personal life have stagnated since his breakup with Saeko a few years earlier, and locked him in an emotional impasse. Each of his two reluctant comrades—Shinji and Naoya—is struggling to come to terms with his unique powers ("the dragon within"). While Shinji wants to use his abilities to help others, Naoya seeks to hide his. Kosaka, meanwhile, doubts the young men's ability, all-too-clearly aware that such claims of psychic knowledge of the crimes could in reality mask a criminal culpability. But then all three are forced into an unsteady alliance to try to save the life of someone close to Kosaka.
Publishers Weekly
First published in Japan in 1991, Miyabe's taut suspense novel should win her new fans in the U.S. In the atmospheric opening, magazine investigative reporter Shogo Kosaka, who's driving at night through a typhoon that has struck near Tokyo, gives a lift to a high school boy marooned on the side of the road, Shinji Inamura. In the course of their rain-soaked journey, Shinji tells Shogo he has psychic abilities. After they happen on a father looking for his missing son, who's named Daisuke, Shinji has a vision of the two men responsible for Daisuke's disappearance (and murder). Despite initial skepticism, the journalist agrees to check the teenager's claims. Japan's #1 bestselling mystery author, Miyabe (The Devil's Whisper) keeps the reader guessing whether Shinji really has special powers or is scamming Shogo, and maintains the tension throughout. (Apr.)