盗みは人のためならず 夫は泥棒、妻は刑事 １

夫は泥棒、妻は刑事 #1

by Jirō Akagawa, 赤川次郎

今野淳一、三十四歳。中肉中背ながら苦みばしった好男子。職業は何と泥棒、それも超一流の腕前である。今野真弓、二十七歳。美人というより可愛い女。考えるのはあまり得意ではないが、警視庁捜査一家のバリバリ刑事。この奇妙なコンビ、なぜか仲睦まじい夫婦なのである。プロ意識に徹した泥棒亭主と、そそっかしい女房刑事という主人公を得て、小粋に展開する都会派ユーモア推理。

429 pages, Paperback

First published October 7, 2011

About the author

Associated Names:
* 赤川次郎 (Japanese & Traditional Chinese)
* อาคากะวา จิโร (Thai)

Best known for his humorous mysteries, Akagawa's first short story, "Ghost Train", was published in 1976 and went on to win the annually granted All Yomimono New Mystery Writers' Prize by Bungeishunjū, a Japanese literary publishing company. Other works of his, The Incident in the Bedroom Suburb (ホームタウンの事件簿 私語を禁ず Homu Taun no Jikenbo: Shigo o Kinzu?) and Voice from Heaven (天からの声 Ten kara no Koe?), were later made into anime, while Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (セーラー服と機関銃 Serafuku to Kikanju?) was made into a popular live action movie. His most recognized works to date pertain to his Mike-neko (or Calico cat) Holmes series. He is extremely prolific; as of August 2006, he had written more than 480 novels in the course of his thirty year career, over 300 million individual published volumes.

Reviews

[Betsy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried very hard to like this book, but the best I could manage was to not hate it. Perhaps some of this is my fault for expecting some dynamic adventures featuring the thief and detective couple, but it turned out to be almost entirely a one man show. On top of that the main female character was very flat as a character and felt entirely comprised on stereotypes.
There were some points in which the story was genuinely entertaining, but they weren't quite enough to make up for some of the other problems I had with story elements.