Japanese Mystery

Chris Harding's enormously enjoyable new book distils Japan's long, complex and fascinating history into the stories of 20 remarkable individuals. These vivid and entertaining portraits take the listener from the earliest written accounts of Japan right through to the life of the current empress, Masako. We encounter shamans and warlords, poets and revolutionaries, scientists, artists and adventurers - each offering insights of their own into this extraordinary place.

Tokyo, 1960s. An unassuming but respected homicide detective, Eitaro Imanishi has a knack for both writing haiku and solving crimes. But when a mysterious unidentified body appears on the tracks of a rail yard, Imanishi has his work cut out for him. Soon, he finds himself on a strange chase that takes him from the hip hangouts of avant-garde Tokyo to a spa in rural Honshu. And all the while, the body count is climbing.

Kosuke Kindaichi arrives on the remote Gokumon Island bearing tragic news—the son of one of the island’s most important families has died, on a troop transport ship bringing him back home after the Second World War. But Kindaichi has not come merely as a messenger—with his last words, the dying man warned that his three step-sisters’ lives would now be in danger. The scruffy detective is determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious prophesy, and to protect the three women if he can.

すべては45 万年以上前古代メソポタミアのシュメールで始まった 宇宙からの存在たちがエネルギー資源を求めて地球に降り立った その記録は人類が残した最古の文献エヌマエリシュギルガメシュ叙事詩アトラハシスその他の書物に明確に残されている これらの文書は粘土板に楔形文字で刻まれ後の時代には聖書の創世記や出エジプト記などの物語の基盤となった しかし真の知識はイデオロギー的宗教的な理由により隠蔽され改ざんされてしまった 科学が否定し続ける動かぬ証拠 長年の研究を通じてヘススセディエルは確信を得た事実は明白であり否定しようがない ただそれがあまりにも信じがたいがゆえに科学界は受け入れを拒み既存の歴史観と合わないものとして排除している ヴェルヌコードはフレミング以前のペニシリン飛行機の発明前の空の旅20世紀になって初めて発見された土地を正確に描いた古代の地図クレイグヴェンター以前のヒトゲノムドリー以前のクローン技術広島長崎以前の核爆発ゲロンコーポレーション以前の不老不死の研究… そうした&

Detective Kyochiro Kaga of the Tokyo Police Department has just been transferred to a new precinct in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo. Newly arrived, but with a great deal of experience, Kaga is promptly assigned to the team investigating the murder of a woman. But the more he investigates, the greater number of potential suspects emerges. It isn’t long before it seems nearly all the people living and working in the business district of Nihonbashi have a motive for murder.

Marty Friedman's upbringing was as atypical as his career. Growing up in a Jewish household in Maryland, the son of an NSA executive, he lacked motivation until he discovered the guitar. Enjoying a hazy adolescence overflowing with partying, music, and teen antics, he achieved local stardom in Deuce, then burst onto the national scene by pioneering a radically new style of playing, bringing attention to the guitar aficionado label, Shrapnel Records. Friedman moved to California and scored a gig in Megadeth.

Acclaimed bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is found brutally murdered in his home on the night before he's planning to leave Japan and relocate to Vancouver. His body is found in his office, a locked room, within his locked house, by his wife and his best friend, both of whom have rock solid...

Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that's not the main reason customers stop by. The father-daughter duo are 'food detectives'. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories—dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility.

As a member of a New York Mafia family, Levi Yoder's role is unique: He's a fixer, a solver of problems, a man whose code puts loyalty above all else, yet he's a man with a conscience. In the Inside Man, Levi's search for the kidnapped grandchild of a Japanese mob boss plunges him into a world filled with chaos. When he's falsely accused of a heinous series of crimes, the FBI makes Levi an offer he can't refuse: use his mob connections to help investigate the murders of several undercover agents or find himself in jail awaiting trial, without a way to clear his name.

In this gloriously over-the-top tale, Aoyama, a widower who has lived alone with his son ever since his wife died seven years before, finally decides it is time to remarry. Since Aoyama is a bit rusty when it comes to dating, a filmmaker friend proposes that, in order to attract the perfect wife, they do a casting call for a movie they don't intend to produce. As the resumes pile up, only one of the applicants catches Aoyama's attention - Yamasaki Asami - a striking young former ballerina with a mysterious past. But she is a far cry from the innocent young woman he imagines her to be.

She was a monster, sleek and gleaming, designed to strike without warning like the dreaded shark. She was the USS Mako, as fearless and bold as any submarine that ever prowled the blue Pacific. Her mission: seek out and destroy the hitherto invincible ships of the Japanese Imperial Navy - and revenge the earlier defeats of a long and dirty war. Here is the story of the men who pitted their lives against impossible odds in the most dangerous branch of the American armed services.

In the Chizurui family mansion, a haunting presence casts a shadow over its residents. By night, an eerie figure, clad in a sinister Hannya mask is seen roaming around the house. An amateur murder mystery writer, Akimitsu Takagi, is sent to investigate—but his investigation takes a harrowing turn as tragedy strikes. Within the confines of a locked study, the head of the family is found dead, with only an ominous Hannya mask lying on the floor by his side and the lingering scent of jasmine in the air.

As they do every year, a small group of acquaintances pay a visit to the remote castle-like Water Mill House, home to the reclusive Fujinuma Kiichi, son of a famous artist, who has lived his life behind a rubber mask ever since a disfiguring car accident. This year, however, the visit is disrupted by an impossible disappearance, the theft of a painting, and a series of baffling murders. The brilliant Kiyoshi Shimada arrives to investigate.

Tucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner, run by Chef Nagare and his daughter, Koishi. The father-daughter duo have reinvented themselves as “food detectives,” offering a service that goes beyond cooking mouth-watering meals. Through their culinary sleuthing, they revive lost recipes and rekindle forgotten memories.

A beloved Japanese bestseller, Menu of Happiness is for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and asks the question: What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time? “As warm and nourishing as a good cup of tea…a series I can see myself returning to again and again...

Yahoo's lead baseball columnist offers an in-depth look at the most valuable commodity in sports - the pitching arm - and how its vulnerability to injury is hurting players and the game, from Little League to the majors.

Nestled deep in the mist-shrouded mountains, The Village of Eight Graves takes its name from a bloody legend. In the 16th century, eight samurais, who had taken refuge there along with a secret treasure, were murdered by the inhabitants, bringing a terrible curse down upon their village. Centuries later, a mysterious young man named Tatsuya arrives in town, bringing a spate of deadly poisonings in his wake. The inimitably scruffy and brilliant Kosuke Kindaichi investigates.

In Bullet Train, underworld operative Ladybug was tasked by his handler Maria Beetle with retrieving a suitcase from a high-speed train in Japan. The job did not go according to plan. Will the unluckiest assassin in the world will find things easier this time around? All he has to do is deliver a painting to a hotel guest, a portrait made by his daughter. Easy enough, except when Ladybug makes the delivery, he realizes that the guest is clearly not the guy in the painting. Then he attacks Ladybug, they fight, and the guest ends up dead. How can such simple jobs always go wrong?

Akira Kido is a divorce attorney whose own marriage is in danger of being destroyed by emotional disconnect. With a midlife crisis looming, Kido's life is upended by the reemergence of a former client, Rié Takemoto. She wants Kido to investigate a dead man - her recently deceased husband, Daisuké. Upon his death she discovered that he’d been living a lie. His name, his past, his entire identity belonged to someone else, a total stranger.

The winter of 1578, four years prior to the Honno-ji Incident. Araki Murashige has betrayed his ally Oda Nobunaga and holed himself up in Arioka Castle—but a string of unsettling incidents within the castle walls has him at his wit’s end. The desperate warlord’s only hope for solving these mysteries is imprisoned in the castle’s dungeon: a man named Kuroda Kanbei, one of Oda’s most gifted strategists. When all the conflict and intrigue come to a close, what will these two men have gained…and lost?