Lady Joker: Volume 1

THE JAPANESE CRIME CLASSIC - ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD

'One of the great masterpieces of Japanese crime fiction and one of the must-read books of this or any year' David Peace

Tokyo, 1995. Five men meet at the racetrack every Sunday to bet on horses. They have little in common except a deep disaffection with their lives, but together they represent the social struggles and griefs of post-War Japan: a poorly socialized genius stuck working as a welder; a demoted detective with a chip on his shoulder; a Zainichi Korean banker sick of being ostracized for his ethnicity; a struggling single dad of a teenage girl with Down syndrome. The fifth man bringing them all together is an elderly drugstore owner grieving his grandson, who died in suspicious circumstances.

Intent on revenge against a society that values corporate behemoths more than human life, the five conspirators decide to carry out a heist: kidnap the CEO of Japan's largest beer conglomerate and extract blood money from the company's corrupt financiers.

Inspired by the unsolved true-crime kidnapping case perpetrated by "the Monster with 21 Faces," Lady Joker has become a cultural touchstone since its 1997 publication, acknowledged as the magnum opus by one of Japan's literary masters.

'A novel that portrays with devastating immensity how those on the dark fringes of society can be consumed by the darkness of their own hearts' Yoko Ogawa, author of The Memory Police

'Takamura's prismatic heist novel offers a broad indictment of capitalist society' New York Times

'Lady Joker is a work you get immersed in, like a sprawling 19th century novel or a TV series like The Wire' NPR

Hallelujah! Inspired by the real-life, still unsolved Glico-Morinaga kidnapping and extortion case which led to the nationwide hunt for "The Monster with Twenty-one Faces," Kaoru Takamura's Lady Joker is at last available in translation; epic in its scale and vision, yet gripping from first to last, this is one of the great masterpieces of Japanese crime fiction and one of the must-read books of this or any year -- David Peace, author of TOKYO YEAR ZERO
A novel that portrays with devastating immensity how those on the dark fringes of society can be consumed by the darkness of their own hearts -- Yoko Ogawa, author of THE MEMORY POLICE
Takamura's prismatic heist novel offers a broad indictment of capitalist society New York Times
Lady Joker is a work you get immersed in, like a sprawling 19th century novel or a TV series like The Wire . . . Lady Joker casts a page-turning spell NPR
Like Ellroy's American Tabloid and Carr's The Alienist, the book uses crime as a prism to examine dynamic periods of social history . . . Takamura's blistering indictment of capitalism, corporate corruption and the alienation felt by characters on both sides of the law from institutions they once believed would protect them resonates surprisingly with American culture Los Angeles Times
Excellent . . . Takamura shows why she's one of Japan's most prominent mystery novelists Publishers Weekly
Takamura's challenging, genre-confounding epic offers a sweeping view of contemporary Japan in all its complexity Kirkus Reviews
Sprawling, addictive, this X-Ray examination of a society where the have and the have nots (including the police) play a slow, inexorable dance towards catastrophe, turns into a fascinating piece of work and I look forward to its conclusion Crime Time
A fascinating slow burn of a book, detailed, complex and immersive Guardian
Meticulously plotted complexity Times Literary Supplement
Ruminative and idiosyncratic, this slow-burner earns its page-count Telegraph
Hallelujah! Inspired by the real-life, still unsolved Glico-Morinaga kidnapping and extortion case which led to the nationwide hunt for "The Monster with Twenty-one Faces," Kaoru Takamura's Lady Joker is at last available in translation; epic in its scale and vision, yet gripping from first to last, this is one of the great masterpieces of Japanese crime fiction and one of the must-read books of this or any year. David Peace, author of Tokyo Year Zero
A novel that portrays with devastating immensity how those on the dark fringes of society can be consumed by the darkness of their own hearts -- Yoko Ogawa author of The Memory Police
Takamura's prismatic heist novel offers a broad indictment of capitalist society New York Times
Lady Joker is a work you get immersed in, like a sprawling 19th century novel or a TV series like The Wire. . . Lady Joker casts a page-turning spell NPR
Like Ellroy's American Tabloid and Carr's The Alienist, the book uses crime as a prism to examine dynamic periods of social history . . . Takamura's blistering indictment of capitalism, corporate corruption and the alienation felt by characters on both sides of the law from institutions they once believed would protect them resonates surprisingly with American culture Los Angeles Times
Excellent . . . Takamura shows why she's one of Japan's most prominent mystery novelists Publishers Weekly
Takamura's challenging, genre-confounding epic offers a sweeping view of contemporary Japan in all its complexity Kirkus Reviews

Kaoru Takamura was born in Osaka in 1953 and is the author of thirteen novels. Her debut, Grab the Money and Run, won the 1990 Japan Mystery and Suspense Grand Prize, and since then her work has been recognized with many of Japan's most prestigious awards for literary fiction as well as for crime fiction: the Naoki Prize, the Noma Literary Award, the Yomiuri Prize, the Shinran Prize, the Jiro Osaragi Prize, the Mystery Writers of Japan Award, and the Japan Adventure Fiction Association Prize. Lady Joker, her first novel to be translated into English, received the Mainichi Arts Award and has been adapted into both a film and a television series.

Allison Markin Powell is a literary translator, editor, and publishing consultant. She has been awarded grants from English PEN and the NEA, and the 2020 PEN America Translation Prize for The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami. Her other translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Kanako Nishi, and Fuminori Nakamura. She was the guest editor for the first Japan issue of Words Without Borders, and she maintains the database Japanese Literature in English.

Marie Iida has served as an interpreter for the New York Times bestselling author Marie Kondo's Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. Her nonfiction translations have appeared in Nang, MoMA Post, Eureka and over half a dozen monographs on contemporary Japanese artists and architects, including Yayoi Kusama, Toyo Ito, and Kenya Hara for Rizzoli New York. Marie currently writes a monthly column for Gentosha Plus about communicating in English as a native Japanese speaker

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