Death in Little Tokyo

Ken Tanaka #1

by Dale Furutani

It's Ken Tanaka's turn to stage a mock mystery for the Los Angeles Mystery Club and he's determined to do it right. Tanaka sets himself up as a fake P.I., office and all, only to have a femme fatale straight out of the movies try to hire him. Taking the case on a whim, Ken's detecting leads him to a mutilated corpse in a Little Tokyo hotel room.

Genres: Mystery, Japan, Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1996

About the author

Dale Furutani's first novel, Death in Little Tokyo, was nominated for an Agatha Award, and won Anthony and Macavity Awards for best first mystery. He lives in Los Angeles.

Series:
* Ken Tanaka
* Matsuyama Kaze

Reviews

[Riq Hoelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received this book as a promotional giveaway at Bouchercon and so wasn't expecting too much, despite its Agatha Award nomination. It's been a long time, but I believe I heard the author speak there and remember him as mostly funny, in a hammy/cheesy sort of way. It also doesn't inspire confidence that this is the first book in a series that ended up being only two.

First impression is this is designed for mystery nerds. It begins with a murder mystery puzzle party and makes plenty of references to classic detective novels. The adventure launches when someone misinterprets a fake setup for a party as an actual detective office and tries to hire the narrator as a detective. So this plays into a fan fantasy in which the reader gets to imagine themselves accidentally falling into a job as a detective. This may explain how the book got award nominations and at the same time was not that generally popular; it may be a niche work for uber-mystery fans. It's also a problem to keep repeating the idea since it's both improbable that such a sequence would keep recurring as well as impossible for the narrator to continue being a complete newbie.

Once started, the storyline is pretty good at pulling you in, telling not just a detective tale, but also touching on racism, alcholism, economic issues, relocation camps, Japanese culture and even LA civic planning. Things are on a narrow edge most of the time, which keeps you reading quickly. If, however, you pause to think about it, you tend to be able to predict how things will turn out, or notice implausibilities.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

i like how it got a little woke in the middle and that it had a hopeful ending … i support the asian-ification of detective fiction!!!!!

[Pamela Mclaren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been intrigued by this little title for quite a while and thought that it would be an interesting book. After all, Los Angeles has a sizable Asian population and its about time that it is represented in the mystery genre with a private eye. But I was a bit disappointed in Ken Tanaka. He almost falls into being an amateur detective and I would rate him as only fair in how he handles this "case."

The book was pretty slow for me and I found myself mentally yelling at Tanaka as he sort of moped around. I wasn't sure if he really wanted to just extradite himself ... and if so, he was doing it very poorly ... or whether he was interested in becoming a PI. In either case, he just wasn't that interesting.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ken Tanaka may not be the most professional detective in the world but he inhabits a world that feels more like reality than most. I really enjoyed this one and how involved the Japanese interment camps, a piece of American history I still think is overlooked, are utilized in this story. A good LA mystery by a relatively unpopular author, which is unfortunate.

[Babette · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book was recommended by another author I have read. In any case, it was enjoyable. The writer uses it in part as a mechanism for commentary on Japanese culture and American politics. I actually liked that aspect of the book.

[Kelvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a 1996 book by the Japanese American author Dale Furutani and is the first book in his Ken Tanaka series. This book won the Anthony Award for Best Novel in 1997. The setting is in 1990s Los Angeles, primarily in the Little Tokyo neighborhood. I really like this book. It is an easy read and is a solid and well written crime mystery that moves at a fast pace. The author sprinkled in a lot of interesting Japanese American history such as how Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps during World War II and how is life there, as well as racial relationships and the struggles of Asian Americans in 1990s LA. It includes episodes like how subtle racial discriminations work in the office and how minority actors have a difficult time finding work in Hollywood in 1990s.

The book is from Ken Tanaka’s first-person narrative point of view. Ken is an American born Japanese American from Hawaii. He is in his early 40s and has just been laid off from his software programmer job. He is also a big crime mystery fan and is a member of the Los Angeles Mystery Club, which is like a live theater. Every month club members pool their money and talents and create a living theater with a murder mystery scene act out during the course of a Saturday afternoon, to be followed by an award banquet that night for the winner. When it is Ken’s turn to set up next month’s mystery, he stole a page from Raymond Chandler’s The Maltese Falcon. Ken rented a small office in Little Tokyo and set up a Kendo Detective Agency, with office furniture, phone and business cards. To his surprise, a real client calling herself Rita Newly walks in and wants Ken to help her pick up a package that night from a Susumu Matsuda at the Golden Cherry Blossom Hotel in Little Tokyo. She claimed she was blackmailed by Susumu with some compromising photos, she had paid the random and wants Ken to pick up the photos. Ken went and met with Susumu and picked up the sealed package. Next day, it was discovered that Susumu has been brutally murdered in his hotel room. Ken became a suspect and decided to solve the case himself.

After a few twists and turns, Ken finally uncovered the truth. It turns out 50 years ago, during WWII, Susumu, a Japanese American, was interned at Heart Mountain Relocation Camp in Wyoming. There, Susumu dated another interned Japanese American called Yuki Yoshida, who has a brother called Fred Yoshida. One night Susumu had an argument with Yuki and he accidentally killed her. People at that time thought she was killed by one of the American guards and the case was never solved. 50 years later, Susumu, who is a fixer for Japanese gangsters (yakuza) was in the US to pay Rita for some smuggled contraband guns she sold to the yakuza. Rita actually sold inferior and defective guns in her shipment. Afraid it might already been discovered by the yakuza, she went to Ken to hired him to pick up the payment. After Ken picked up the package from Susumu and left, Susumu went to a strip club called Paradise Vineyard Theater. There, he ran into Yuki Yoshida (who is the manager of the club). The two went to a bar and Susumu got drunk. When the two went back to Susumu’s hotel, Susumu confessed to killing Yuki 50 years ago. Fred then killed Susumu. Ken was able to work through the maze of clues and solved the case.

[Hannah Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really torn about this book. I wanted to like it but I had a LOT of trouble getting into it. I tried to read it four times before I finally finished it, just because I couldn't bring myself to care about it. It sort of acted like two books- one was a mediocre mystery and the other was a fascinating history. The mystery was bland. The protagonist had to bend over backwards to justify his motives for getting involved, and it read as ludicrous. He was also amazingly dense for someone who claimed to be a mystery buff, missing clues at every turn. The mystery portion has no redeeming features- the setting was bland and even though it made a big deal about being in LA/Little Tokyo, it could have been anywhere. He likes to go on tangents in the writing, including the full first chapter. The characters were written nicely but not able to save the plot.
The second aspect of the book was the history of Japanese-Americans, and that part was fascinating. The oral histories of Heart Mountain and Manzanar were really interesting and well written. Any time we were taken out of the present, the story got really interesting. Unfortunately, these parts were few and far between and often incongruous to the rest of the book, and it felt very at odds with the mystery (even when the two aspects were supposed to be connected).

[Patricia English · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not have very high expectations for this book, but once I started reading it, I finished it in one night. The writing was well done, the story kept you wanting to turn the page in order to see what happened next. It had enough suspense and whimsy that make you nervous and smile at the same time. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the next in the series.
Kens knowledge of LA and little Tokyo is right on the button and took me back to places I had not been in a very long time.

[Mililani · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could not get into this book. The beginning was not engaging nor was it interesting. Quit after three chapters.

[Volha · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not much of a mystery, rather some insightful glimpses of Japanese mentality and racial prejudice many Japanese-Americans encountered through history.

[Regine]

Amateurish.

[Luvs2read · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read book 2, the Toyotomi Blades, and liked it, and looked for years for this book. Glad to see it republished in e-. I really enjoy the Ken Tanaka stories, and I wish Dale Furutani had written more!

Ken Tanaka becomes involved in murder when a woman mistakes the detective office he's set up for his murder mystery club as a real place and asks him to pick up a package for her. Ken thinks "why not?" and sets in motion a series of events that gets him questioned by the police, beaten up, threatened, and other good things that happen to amateur sleuths that stumble onto a crime. I especially liked the details of Los Angeles, being Japanese American in Los Angeles, the WWII internment camps and Japanese Americans who volunteered to fight in the U.S. armed forces. This was a great series, and as I say, I truly wish he'd written more.

I also recommend Furutani's samurai series, which are excellent historical mysteries.

[M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a mystery written in the 1990's, set in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo. Ken Tanaka has been laid off from his computer job, has joined a mystery weekend club, and is setting up his own mystery for his friends to solve. His set-up includes a dummy detective agency. Enter a woman who mistakes his set for a real detective agency; Ken mistakenly thinks that his mystery club friends have sent him a fake mystery to solve.

The mystery itself is interesting and somewhat unusual, but what I liked about this book were the memories of some of the characters of the internment camps American-Japanese were put in during WW II, some of what happened before and afterward, and the mind-sets of some of the internees.

This is an adult book, not because of any explicit or violent content, but because most kids wouldn't be interested in the subject as written.

[LJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

DEATH IN LITTLE TOKYO (Ama. Sleuth-Ken Tanaka-Japan-Cont) - G
Furutani, Dale - 1st in series

From Fantastic Fiction: While staging a mock mystery for the Los Angeles Mystery Club, Ken Tanaka takes on a real case only to find himself embroiled in a mystery involving international smugglers and the Japanese Mafia in Little Tokyo.

Interesting characters with foibles. The story raises social issues without preaching. The story was only okay.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A twist on classic hard boiled mysteries

Ken Tanaka is pretending to be a detective for a mystery party he's hosting. He sets up a fake detective's office as a prop when a beautiful blonde walks in and hires him for a job. The set up is deliberately reminiscent of Raymond Chandler, but the author weaves in a hefty dose of real local history to the ground the story in the modern day.

[Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I prefer Dale Furutani's samurai mysteries, Death at the Crossroads, Jade Palace Vendetta and Kill the Shogun.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very classic detective in style, even if Tanaka is no real detective, but gets only hired as such for doing a small job. I also enjoyed learning more about Japanese American history and customs.

[Kariss · Rating 3 out of 5]

A new series that should be interesting.

[Laurali · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice blend of Japanese-American culture and Sam Spade.

[Rebekah Sheppard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and funny story about a murder mystery. Very insightful as to the Japanese American experience in America during WWII and its aftermath.

[Sharon Stine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed the familiar LA, Little Tokyo setting and Japanese American characters but actual mystery was a bit gory even for someone who loves to read mysteries.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending was a little unbelievable.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: Ken stages a mock mystery for the LA Mystery Club. He sets himself up as a fake PI; a femme fatale hires him and he finds a real body!