Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan

From the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police press club: a unique, firsthand, revelatory look at Japanese culture from the underbelly up. At nineteen, Jake Adelstein went to Japan in search of peace and tranquility. What he got was a life of crime . . . crime reporting, that is, at the prestigious "Yomiuri Shinbun." For twelve years of eighty-hour workweeks, he covered the seedy side of Japan, where extortion, murder, human trafficking, and corruption are as familiar as ramen noodles and sake. But when his final scoop brought him face to face with Japan's most infamous "yakuza" boss--and the threat of death for him and his family--Adelstein decided to step down . . . momentarily. Then, he fought back. In "Tokyo Vice," Adelstein tells the riveting, often humorous tale of his journey from an inexperienced cub reporter--who made rookie mistakes like getting into a martial-arts battle with a senior editor--to a daring, investigative journalist with a price on his head. With its vivid, visceral descriptions of crime in Japan and an exploration of the world of modern-day "yakuza" that even few Japanese ever see, "Tokyo Vice" is a fascination, and an education, from first to last.

About the Author :
Jake Adelstein was a reporter for the "Yomiuri Shinbun," Japan's largest newspaper, from 1993 to 2005. From 2006 to 2007 he was the chief investigator for a U.S. State Department-sponsored study of human trafficking in Japan. Considered one of the foremost experts on organized crime in Japan, he works as a writer and consultant in Japan and the United States. He is also the public relations director for the Washington, D.C.-based Polaris Project Japan, which combats human trafficking and the exploitation of women and children in the sex trade.

Review :
"Groundbreaking reporting on the yakuza. . . . Adelstein shares juicy, salty, and occasionally funny anecdotes, but many are frightening. . . . Adelstein doesn't lack for self-confidence . . . but beneath the bravado are a big heart and a relentless drive for justice."--"The Boston Globe" "Gripping. . . . [Adelstein's] vividly detailed account of investigations into the shadowy side of Japan shows him to be more enterprising, determined and crazy than most. . . . In some of the freshest pages of the book, our unlikely hero tells us about his initiation into the seamy, tough-guy Japan beneath the public courtesies, . . . . Adelstein builds his stories with as much surprise and grit as any Al Pacino or Mark Wahlberg movie, blurring the lines between the cops, the crooks and even the journalists. . . . "Tokyo Vice" is often so snappy and quotable that it sounds as if it were a treatment for a Scorsese movie set in Queens. Yet the facts beneath the noirish lines are assembled with what looks to be ferocious diligence and resourcefulness. For even as he is getting slapped around by thugs and placed under police protection, Adelstein never loses his gift for crisp storytelling and an unexpectedly earnest eagerness to try to rescue the damned."--Pico Iyer, "Time" "A journalist's memoir unlike any I've ever read."--Dave Davies, Fresh Air "Marvelous. . . . "Tokyo Vice" offers a fascinating glimpse into Japan's end-of-last-century newspaper culture as seen from a gaijin's perspective. It's filled with startling anecdotes and revelations. . . . Adelstein writes of his quest for scoops with sardonic wit, and his snappy style mixes the tropes of detective fiction with the broader perspective of David Simon's books as he makes a careful account of his journalistic wins and losses. . . . The author's gallows humor bleeds into even darker, more serious hues once Adelstein starts covering the Japanese mafia. . . . Astonishingly proves that no matter how weird