The Last Train
A Tokyo Mystery
Detective Hiroshi Shimizu investigates white collar crime in Tokyo. He’s lost his girlfriend and still dreams of his time studying in America, but with a stable job, his own office and a half-empty apartment, he’s settled in.
When an American businessman turns up dead, his mentor Takamatsu calls him out to the site of a grisly murder. A glimpse from a security camera video suggests the killer was a woman, but in Japan, that seems unlikely. Hiroshi quickly learns how close homicide and suicide can appear in a city full of high-speed trains just a step—or a push—away.
Takamatsu drags Hiroshi out to the hostess clubs and skyscraper offices of Tokyo in search of the killer. She’s trying to escape Japan for a new life by playing a high-stakes game of insider information. To find her, Hiroshi goes deeper and deeper into Tokyo’s intricate, ominous market for the most expensive real estate in the world.
When Takamatsu inexplicably disappears, Hiroshi teams up with ex-sumo wrestler Sakaguchi. They scour Tokyo’s sacred temples, corporate offices and industrial wastelands to find out where Takamatsu went, and why one woman would be driven to murder when she seems to have it all.
In a megalopolis of 40 million people, finding one woman is nearly impossible. If he can’t find her, more businessmen will die, she’ll flee the country and the male-dominated, cutthroat world of buying and selling property will never change.
After years in America and lost in neat, clean spreadsheets, Hiroshi confronts the stark realities of the biggest city in the world, where inside information can travel in a flash from the top investment firms to the bottom of the working world, where street-level punks and teenage hostesses sell their souls for a small cut of high-profit land deals.
Hiroshi’s determined to cut through Japan’s ambiguities—and dangers—to find the murdering ex-hostess before she extracts her final revenge—which just might be him.
What People Are Saying
“An absorbing investigation.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“An utterly page-turning adventure.”
— Foreword Reviews
“A terrific thriller.”
— Blue Ink Review
“Gripping and suspenseful. 10 out of 10.”
— Booklife (by Publisher’s Weekly)
“Lightning-fast chase to the finish.”
— Best Thrillers
“A five-star detective read.”
— Reader Views
Awards
Winner Shelf Unbound Competition for Best Independently Published Book (2018)
Winner Independent Press Award for Mystery and for Thriller (2018)
Winner Book Excellence Awards for Mystery (2017)
Gold Award Literary Titan Book Award (2017)
Other Novels by Michael Pronko
