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Six Four

(Prefecture D #4)

Hideo Yokoyama,

Jonathan Lloyd-Davies (Translator)

3.46 · Rating details · 7,196 ratings · 1,196 reviews

THE NIGHTMARE NO PARENT COULD ENDURE. THE CASE NO DETECTIVE COULD SOLVE. THE TWIST NO READER COULD PREDICT.

For five days, the parents of a seven-year-old Japanese schoolgirl sat and listened to the demands of their daughter’s kidnapper. They would never learn his identity. And they would never see their daughter alive again.

Fourteen years later, the mystery remains uns

...more

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Kindle Edition, 576 pages

Published February 7th 2017 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published October 2012)

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Dec 16, 2016 Paromjit rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-fiction, netgalley, mystery

This is a long and unusually demanding read, set in Japan, requiring attention to detail from the reader. It does not adhere to many of the common expectations of crime fiction. Six Four is the code name for a fourteen year cold case in which a seven year old girl, Shoko, was kidnapped and never returned despite the ransom being paid. The case still remains open. The Press and Media Relations Director, Yoshinobu Mikami, is a cop and visits the girl's father to pay his respects. His own daughter, ...more

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Mar 21, 2018 Jeffrey Keeten rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mysteries, the-japanese

"Turning, he saw the young girl, still half-concealed and watching him out of one eye. She had one hand over her mouth, trying to hold back laughter. An unspeakable emotion washed over him. He felt himself shiver. It was as though he’d caught a glimpse of himself through the girl’s eyes. The way he looked to other people, not the way he looked to himself in the mirror or in a photograph."

The way people see us is always different than how we see ourselves. No one has more information about us ...more

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Mar 17, 2017 William2 rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 21-ce, crime-detective, fiction, japan

How do the police operate in Japan? This police procedural from author Hideo Yokoyama reads much differently than one would written by, say, Richard Price or Elmore Leonard. The usual human failings are on full display—incompetence, careerism, ambition, revenge, etc—but they are played out in a setting alien to the Western reader. That's what made this novel so very interesting to me. For we do not know how the specific cultural idiosyncrasies of Japan will impinge upon the story's development. How do the police operate in Japan? This police procedural from author Hideo Yokoyama reads much differently than one would written by, say, Richard Price or Elmore Leonard. The usual human failings are on full display—incompetence, careerism, ambition, revenge, etc—but they are played out in a setting alien to the Western reader. That's what made this novel so very interesting to me. For we do not know how the specific cultural idiosyncrasies of Japan will impinge upon the story's development.

Anyone who's suffered the petty humiliations of office politics will feel this book deep in their vitals. Now add to that loathsome banality the following enticements: (1) the setting in a Japanese prefectural police HQ where mistakes covered up 14 years ago in a famous kidnapping of a 7-year-old girl are only now coming to light; (2) an arrogant press corps who wants the head of the HQ's media director on a pike for abstruse reasons of journalistic disclosure; and (3) the media director himself, one Mikami, recently exiled from the investigative side—at heart he's really a detective—whose teenage daughter ran away three months ago leaving his wife distraught—and we have the novel's basic propulsive means.

Mikami has many questions and no one is providing answers so he must work inductively. Slowly, painstakingly, he pieces the scandal together. The plotting is exquisite. The reader moves through the logical progression of his thoughts, reservations, doubts and discoveries. For 566 pages his is the sole point of view. I admire how Mikami queries facial expressions and body language, someone's absence or abrupt appearance, an overheard word or phrase. Each clue is puzzled over it until he has a logical option or two or nine. Then he must run around eliminating false leads. All the while the writing is flat and unadorned. This isn't literary fiction. It's a conventional if captivating thriller depicting police culture in Japan and it's dysfunctional relationship with the press. Nothing gets in the way of the storytelling. In that sense, the tale has a certain purity. One is reminded of Georges Simenon and Leonardo Sciascia at their best.

In the end the book is about storytelling. It's about who controls the narrative, how it's presented to the public through the Fourth Estate, and who can or can't be trusted with the facts. The police tell a deliberately false narrative to protect themselves. Director Mikami is caught between their closed ranks and the overweening arrogance of the media. In Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep Philip Marlowe controls the narrative that will be presented to the newspapers. At several points it becomes necessary to determine precisely what the public narrative will be. Consulted by the police, Marlowe decides what details are to be included, which left out, which modified. Like Mikami he is a man with his own moral code and he works outside the system; true, technically Mikami's part of the HQ administrative team, but this allegiance has little meaning as he plays the lone wolf hunting down the truth. Moreover, Mikami does not have the good fortune of working in media-comatose 1930s San Francisco. This is modern Japan where the technical capacity for storytelling long ago outstripped available content. Thus the shrill, almost rabid manner of the journalists. The journalists here are pissed off, loudmouthed, insulting and self-righteousness in the extreme. That is the procedural level on which the book functions. There is not a lot of cloak and dagger, nor much cutting up of corpses, blood-spatter analysis, long stakeouts, prisoner confessions, deathbed clues or romance. It's mostly about office politics and the relationship between the press and the police surrounding the blown kidnapping case. Moreover, it has a wonderful final twist. Enough for now. Do read it. ...more

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Jan 12, 2017 Fran rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Superintendent Mikami, a twenty year police detective, has been transferred to Prefecture D in the role of new Press Director for Media Relations. Undesirable as this new position is to Mikami, he must learn to walk a fine line between the press, hungry for information, and the police desiring good publicity since undermining police tactics in the court of public opinion acts as a deterrent to criminal investigations. Suwa, as Section Chief of Mikami's small department , is a spin doctor who att Superintendent Mikami, a twenty year police detective, has been transferred to Prefecture D in the role of new Press Director for Media Relations. Undesirable as this new position is to Mikami, he must learn to walk a fine line between the press, hungry for information, and the police desiring good publicity since undermining police tactics in the court of public opinion acts as a deterrent to criminal investigations. Suwa, as Section Chief of Mikami's small department , is a spin doctor who attempts, in tandem with Mikami, to oversee and control timely press releases, as well as maintain anonymity when instructed by the powers that be.

Mikami experiences life changing events when daughter Ayumi disappears. He and wife Minako exist in a sea of silence. Minako refuses to leave the house after having received three suspicious silent phone calls. Perhaps Ayumi is too upset to let her voice be heard by her frantic parents. Mikami's reaction to his daughter's disappearance has manifested itself in sudden attacks of dizziness. Mikami in his capacity as Press Director has been assigned an additional job by the Director of Administrative Affairs. The Commissioner General is coming from Tokyo to oversee a fourteen year old cold case for which the Statute of Limitations for Prosecution will soon expire. A seven year old girl named Shoko Amamiya was abducted, the ransom paid, but Shoko was murdered. Fourteen years have passed and Mr. Amamiya, a successful business owner, feels he has no reason to meet with the commissioner. He knows that mistakes made during the investigation have been covered up. Nothing will come from allowing the commissioner to meet with him and turn the meeting into a photo op. The Commissioner has his own agenda and vision for Prefecture D. Added to Mikami's duties, he must suppress the name of a pregnant woman who caused an auto accident. The woman has ties to the police department. By keeping the press at bay, the journalists retaliate by planning to boycott the commissioner's visit.

This police procedural follows several different story threads, the most important being the cold case of the murder of seven year old Shoko Amamiya. There is give and take between law enforcement and the press, as well as a window into the hierarchy of law enforcement. Author Hideo Yokoyama slowly and meticulously shines a light on character interactions while providing fascinating plot twists that are at times unsettling. "Six Four" is a lengthy, police procedural highlighting the interrelationship between Criminal Investigations, Administrative Affairs and the press coverage of crimes committed. A thoroughly enjoyable, well written tome.

Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Six Four". ...more

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May 13, 2017 Adam Dalva rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Unusual, long, methodical novel that is less thriller and more workplace drama, but is oddly gripping all the same. Yokoyama creates a whole ecosystem of police department intersections here, with Mikami, a likable hard-boiled protagonist, constantly moving between his job with the press, his former colleagues in criminal investigating, and the Tokyo bureaucracy, not trusted anywhere as he slowly unravels a departmental conspiracy and struggles to accept that his run-away daughter might not come Unusual, long, methodical novel that is less thriller and more workplace drama, but is oddly gripping all the same. Yokoyama creates a whole ecosystem of police department intersections here, with Mikami, a likable hard-boiled protagonist, constantly moving between his job with the press, his former colleagues in criminal investigating, and the Tokyo bureaucracy, not trusted anywhere as he slowly unravels a departmental conspiracy and struggles to accept that his run-away daughter might not come home.

The book is much less lurid than its promotion would have you think. The first chapter is one of the great misdirects of all time; I wonder how many people buy the book after reading the back jacket and the lede (a kidnapped daughter! a corpse in a morgue!) and then slowly realize that this is really a 570 page novel about saving face in front of bosses. I suspect that this is probably not going to do it many favors - I picked it up expecting a bit of a vacation read and ended up getting a complexly peopled novel I liked much better, but too often reviews are based on failure of expectation instead of failure of craft. The marketing is not Yokoyama's fault, but I can already see a trend toward disappointment that might under-serve his accomplishment here.

SIX FOUR owes a huge debt to "High and Low," one of my favorite movies, whose kidnapping case is strangely similar to the Six Four kidnapping, which happened 12 years before the action of the novel but is a specter lurking in the background. I also can't shake the idea that Mikami is meant to be played by the late Takashi Shimura - it is like Yokoyama drew his lead looking at photos. The whole thing, really, is a window into another culture. I've never read so many scenes where characters in desperate rushes pull over to the side of the road to answer a phone call in "drive -mode." The obsession with bureaucracy and proper etiquette reminds me of Murakami's great UNDERGROUND, which examined the Japanese instinct to work within structures in times of crisis.

It's funny - my biggest complaint about the novel is something I can't even mention after the third-act twist, which pays off the problem. Or, it's not really a twist (another marketing failure), it's more of a wonderful development. And it's like everything else about this book, it's both mundane and unbelievable, and it kept me gripped. Despite the lack of resolution with sub-plots, I recommend SIX FOUR. Just know what you're getting into. ...more

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Dec 05, 2018 Thomas rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Translated mystery fans

Recommended to Thomas by: Nancy Oakes

Shelves: east-asian-crime

A GoodReads friend sent me this book 1 and 1/2 years ago and I put off reading it because it is 635 pages long(643 if you count the author interview). It is more focused on Japanese society than the mystery. The first 500 pages are about infighting/power struggles within the Japanese police and their difficult relationship with the press. The unsolved kidnapping/murder of a seven year old girl is always hovering in the background, and does not come into focus until near the end for a stunning, u ...more

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Nov 08, 2016 Becky rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Jesus, this is long book! Anyone who promotes it as a thriller needs to avoid taking up knitting as that would blow their mind. I am sure that there must be more to this, some subtle something that I am missing, but as far as I could tell this was 81 chapters of inter departmental bickering and power play amongst the Japanese police force. if you want to know the ins and outs of ridiculously melodramatic arguments about the power of the media then this is for you. if you fancy an actual crime no ...more

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Apr 18, 2016 Leo Robertson rated it did not like it · review of another edition

This is an excellent instruction manual for Japanese policemen.

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Jan 20, 2017 Sam rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-reads

Six Four is a somewhat strange, slowly paced and bloated but nevertheless intriguing police procedural novel, following Press Director Mikami as he grapples with office politics, intersquad squabbling, hidden agendas and directives from Tokyo, and all against a backdrop of his own missing daughter and two cases, twenty years apart, linked by kidnapping for ransom. This is certainly a strange read, and it is dense and for my liking could have been more tightly edited and pacing hastened, and I do Six Four is a somewhat strange, slowly paced and bloated but nevertheless intriguing police procedural novel, following Press Director Mikami as he grapples with office politics, intersquad squabbling, hidden agendas and directives from Tokyo, and all against a backdrop of his own missing daughter and two cases, twenty years apart, linked by kidnapping for ransom. This is certainly a strange read, and it is dense and for my liking could have been more tightly edited and pacing hastened, and I don't think this is a fault of the translation as this level of minute detail and less action seems more likely to have come from the original novel in Japanese.

I did find my attention wandering in the early parts as the scene was set, and could have used more thrusts of activity and doing to break from the long paragraphs of explanation and backstory. But I ended up enjoying this far more than I had in the early parts, and once the stage was set I thought Yokoyama built a nice, confusing puzzle that wound up with higher stakes than just political infighting and power plays. There's definitely great insight into Japanese culture, law enforcement culture in Japan, and how people handle people in a general sense to get what they want or need. Although there are few traditional thrills, towards the end I found the layers of politics and personalities to be interesting, and found the resolution, though a bit open ended, satisfying in relation to the characters we've encountered.

Overall I'd say I liked this, though I started out a 2 star read, the intriguing parts were stronger than the boring bits, so I ended up a 3 star read. It's a bit trickier to recommend: I don't think readers of typical thrillers or crime fiction or Japanese fiction would necessarily enjoy this, and its bloat, slow pacing, and lack of real action are definitely demerits against it. But I did invest in many of the characters and by the middle was genuinely interested to see how all the disparate threads would pull together, and I couldn't put together the moves and reveals and twists as quickly as Mikami, so Yokoyama certainly had me guessing and in the dark until all was finally revealed. I don't know that I'd readily read another novel by Yokoyama, but my reading experience for this one ended up pleasant.

-received ARC on NetGalley thanks to FSG, in exchange for an honest review ...more

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Feb 15, 2016 Liz Barnsley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: highly-recommended, received-via-netgalley, bloody-marvellous

Six Four is really the most amazing read BUT you have to have patience. It is unexpected. I will be absolutely honest and say that at about 50 pages in (and this is a long one!) I almost gave up. If you get to that point kick yourself into continuing – it will reward you in many ways. From a little after that point I devoured it. It kicked in big time.

To clarify – the problem for me came with a bit of a culture clash – the names are all very similar and I was muddling up the characters and had t Six Four is really the most amazing read BUT you have to have patience. It is unexpected. I will be absolutely honest and say that at about 50 pages in (and this is a long one!) I almost gave up. If you get to that point kick yourself into continuing – it will reward you in many ways. From a little after that point I devoured it. It kicked in big time.

To clarify – the problem for me came with a bit of a culture clash – the names are all very similar and I was muddling up the characters and had to keep backtracking which was challenging.But then, like magic, suddenly all that goes away, you are bang in it. Another thing to note: Hideo Yokoyama has written a slow burner of a novel, with no clear investigative track and a very different approach to things. If you are expecting a standard Crime novel with a detective and clues and suspects and the like, no. You only kind of get that. What you actually get is a character and political study which has an emotional and very intriguing mystery at the heart of it.

I can’t really tell you too much about the plot because to know it is to spoil it – Ive not read a construction quite like this before in which a crime story has very few of the defacto crime elements but manages to be a completely marvellous crime novel none the less. It is baffling and extraordinarily intelligent, a character fuelled creative piece of genius with a twist in the tale that Agatha Christie would get writers envy over.

It is a reading experience this one – it will engage the little grey cells (yes another Christie reference) and offer the reader something different in the field – ultimately I can’t do anything except highly recommend this one for anyone that likes to think outside the box and if you fancy seeing a mystery story done in a very different yet highly credible way Six Four is definitely for you.

I loved it. Yes I did – despite having to engage high levels of concentration in the first little bit, because in doing so I ended up getting what I did out of it. A bloody tremendous read! ...more

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Feb 15, 2017 Nancy Oakes rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-fiction, crime-fiction-japan

Let's just get this out of the way -- Six Four is not an average thriller, nor is it an average police procedural; there are no kick-ass heroines or scenes of over-the-top violence to be found anywhere in this book. I finished it in one go in a major overnight, insomnia-fueled reading session and my reaction was this: hooray (!) for something new, something delightfully different, and above all, for an intelligent mystery novel that goes well beyond the standard crime fiction fare -- in short, t ...more

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Jan 14, 2016 Sebastian rated it really liked it · review of another edition

When I first discovered Hideo Yokoyama’s crime novel „Six Four“ there were two things that immediately made me want to read it: The first thing was that it came with the praise of being „the Japanese crime sensation that sold over a million copies“ which even for a nation with a population of 128 million people is still quite impressive and I really don’t get to read of lot of crime novels or thrillers that are set in Asia. But what made me even more excited about the book was the fact that it w ...more

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Jun 03, 2016 Ali rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Wow. this is a truly bad book. I was intrigued by the literary phenomenon status it has garnered in Japan. I can only assume that Japanese readers adore exposition about police hierarchies and internal organisation.

For the first half of the book the narrative tension hinges on whether or not the press corps will make a complaint about the police or not. It's never made clear why we should care, so we don't. Then we discover, shock horror, that Tokyo may replace one police officer with another. ...more

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May 02, 2018 Kirsten rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Wow! Just... wow!! What a book!!

This was an incredible, engrossing read. A book of crime fiction ostensibly centering on a missing person/kidnap victim, but really a biography of a police department in crisis. Japan, the Japanese police system, and the main character of Mikami are clearly and sensitively portrayed in this volume of Japanese literature.

A 500+ page book it read faster than most shorter books. Intrigue, conspiracy, police procedure, as well as showing the pains that the people inv ...more

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Apr 18, 2017 K. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own-voices, own-it-hard-copy, 2017, setting-asia, crime, bipoc-narrator, translated, audience-adult

One of my goals this year is to read more fiction translated from Asian languages. So when I saw this at Dymocks - AND it had hot pink pages - I was instantly sold.

This...........took me forever and ever to read. Like, a solid week of reading. And partly it's because it's nearly 700 pages long, and partly because it's a slow, dense story.

Technically, this is a crime novel. But it's a crime novel in the same way that Broadchurch is a crime show where the crime is there but the show is also abou One of my goals this year is to read more fiction translated from Asian languages. So when I saw this at Dymocks - AND it had hot pink pages - I was instantly sold.

This...........took me forever and ever to read. Like, a solid week of reading. And partly it's because it's nearly 700 pages long, and partly because it's a slow, dense story.

Technically, this is a crime novel. But it's a crime novel in the same way that Broadchurch is a crime show where the crime is there but the show is also about the lives of the detectives and the interactions that they have with other members of the investigative team and their interactions with the press.

So while this IS a crime novel and it IS about the main character discovering that something in a police investigation 20 years earlier was done wrong and that leading to new clues about the case? It's predominantly about the main character - the head of media affairs - dealing with the press (which, I should add, was often BAFFLING and fascinating at the same time. Like...the press telling the police that they're going to go on strike unless the police give them the confidential information they want?!?!?! WHUT. Japan's system must be veeeery different to ours), dealing with his staff, dealing with the ongoing feud between the criminal investigation department and the administrative affairs department, dealing with his wife becoming a hermit in the aftermath of their daughter's disappearance.

It's slow and it's dense and it was often confusing for me because I do this thing where once I know the characters' names, I basically skim over any name once I see the first letter. Except that because probably 5 or 6 characters in this have VERY similar names, that backfired on me in spectacular faschion.

And based on my feelings for 75-80% of this book, I was anticipating a 3 star read. Except then the last 75-100 pages happened, and it basically made my head explode because it was UTTERLY AMAZING and I did not see any of it coming.

So. It's slow. It's complex. It's totally worth it. ...more

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Jul 21, 2017 Ms.pegasus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone interested in Japanese culture

Shelves: japan, translated-into-english, suspense, fiction

It all seemed so simple. Yoshinobu Mikami, newly appointed superintendent of Media Relations for the Prefecture Headquarters, has been ordered to prepare for the visit of the Commissioner General of the National Police Agency based in Tokyo. Mikami's assignment unravels in so many ways that it's difficult to boil down.

Mikami had hoped for a promotion within the Criminal Investigations Dept. Instead he is under the jurisdiction of Administrative Affairs. The two branches are wary of each other. H ...more

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Oct 27, 2017 ❤️ rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, books-to-screen

Going into this book thinking it's purely a thriller is not the best way to enjoy or get the most out of it. In that mindset, I can see how it's easy to find it bloated and way too long, like many readers have.

What Six Four actually is, is a 600+ paged, slow-burning and intricately plotted police procedural with a lot of characters to keep track of and a few mysterious sub-plots folded in throughout. The writing is outstanding, and I especially found that so in the characters. With so many chara ...more

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Apr 04, 2017 Jim Coughenour rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime4connoisseurs, japanese-literature, fat-fiction

Yoshinobu Mikami must be the world's most ineffectual detective. He meanders and broods, there are hundreds of pages dedicated to his labored reconstruction of what other people are thinking, feeling, conniving – yet he solves absolutely nothing. Hundreds of pages dedicated to the minutiae of police politics and media relations.

"Wait!" Mikami shouted. "I guarantee that you'll get proper announcements from this point forward. We will give you everything we know. It's what you want."

"Aren't we pas

...more

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Aug 06, 2017 John rated it liked it · review of another edition

Although his police career has been mainly as a detective, middle-aged Yoshinobu Mikami has been transferred sideways to become Media Relations officer of the police department in City D. Slowly, as he battles with the journalists on the one hand and his irrationally secretive bosses in the PD on the other, with everyone preparing for the arrival of a visiting police bigwig from Tokyo, it emerges that much of the oddness of the way his superiors are behaving can be traced to a notorious fourteen Although his police career has been mainly as a detective, middle-aged Yoshinobu Mikami has been transferred sideways to become Media Relations officer of the police department in City D. Slowly, as he battles with the journalists on the one hand and his irrationally secretive bosses in the PD on the other, with everyone preparing for the arrival of a visiting police bigwig from Tokyo, it emerges that much of the oddness of the way his superiors are behaving can be traced to a notorious fourteen-years-old kidnap/murder case, called Six Four, that was never solved, and the official coverup of a logistics error the cops made at the time.

Much of this long book is taken up with the politics of Mikami's interactions with the journalists and the interdepartmental politics that is threatening to pull the PD apart. Weaving through it is a thin strand of plot following Mikami's realization that, if he is to set his world to order, he must solve both the issue of the coverup and, preferably, the cold case.

It's that thin strand that's the good stuff -- the stuff we came to the book for -- and unfortunately it's not until the long-delayed final act that it begins to take its rightful place as main pillar of the plot. Before then, although I enjoyed much of the writing (Lloyd-Davies's translation is very fluent and readable, with only the rarest of lapses that the copyeditor should have picked up), I was, to far too great an extent, bored by the subject matter. I really didn't give a whole heck of a lot of a damn if Mikami was able to make his peace, despite all the constraints imposed upon him, with the childish pack of reporters; and, if the reporters behaved with tiresome and often not wholly believable childishness, just don't get me started on Mikami's superiors, whose behavior was frequently like that of a schoolyard of pre-adolescents.

I did care about Mikami, though, and his wife Minako -- coping with a situation at home that their teenaged daughter ran away three months ago and hasn't made contact -- so I persevered. Some of the other characters affected me, too, such as Yamamiya, the dignified father of the seven-year-old who was murdered in the Six Four case, and Mikumo, Mikami's most junior staffer, eager to break through the glass ceilings of her age and her gender despite the conservative ethos of the PD.

The naming of Mikumo leads me to another, very prosaic, difficulty that I had with the novel. It may be that in Japanese the names Mikami and Mikumo read as very different, but in translation it's extremely easy to get the two names mixed up. If it were just this pair it wouldn't be too bad, but we also have Mikami's wife Minako, Mikami's colleague/antagonist Mikura, another character called Mesaki, a journalist called Mainichi . . . and I may have missed one or two, because the Dramatis Personae list at the start is woefully incomplete. On some pages my eyes were swimming as I strained to keep the characters straight. (view spoiler) I'm not sure how this problem could have been solved, but solved I think it should have been.

Other readers are going to enjoy this novel more than I did, I'm sure. For me, though, it was a matter of too often and too long getting bogged down in bickering and petty politics between individuals and groups for whom I couldn't raise much sympathy or indeed interest. ...more

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Jan 12, 2016 Pia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, netgalley, pia-s-around-the-year-in-52-books, fiction, src-spring-2016, japan, week-39

In the last days of the Showa period a little girl is abducted and killed even after her parents pay the ransom. The case has been open for 14 years, but they have no new leads. Six four was the code name for the case, as it took place in the 64th year of the Showa period (the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of the Shōwa Emperor, Hirohito, from December 25, 1926, through January 7, 1989),

Mikami, Press and Media Relations Director for the Police Prefecture, takes an interest ...more

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Mar 24, 2016 Piercehiggins rated it did not like it · review of another edition

646 pages. Six four whichever way you look at it! A torturous book with about 400 pages of tedious boring detail of inter department squabbling in the Japanese police force. Given the amount of excellent reviews of this book I feel I have missed some subtle underlying theme in the story? It could have been a good thriller and parts do move along but overall the emphasis on department politics was just too much. Furthermore there are quiet a number of issues left unresolved. The author should see ...more

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Feb 10, 2016 Claire rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016-book, netgalley, new-author-to-me-2016

Six Four is two stories - a teenage girl who has run away and a young girl abducted, held for ransom and brutally murdered. Both sets of parents looking for answers.

To start with it was a little confusing and not the most exciting – it felt like the author was setting the scene quite considerably but as I got immersed myself into the story, I realised how much it actually needed.

The story was quite an eye opener to cultural differences between the UK and Japan. The way the Japanese police for Six Four is two stories - a teenage girl who has run away and a young girl abducted, held for ransom and brutally murdered. Both sets of parents looking for answers.

To start with it was a little confusing and not the most exciting – it felt like the author was setting the scene quite considerably but as I got immersed myself into the story, I realised how much it actually needed.

The story was quite an eye opener to cultural differences between the UK and Japan. The way the Japanese police force operates is very different to the UK force (or my understanding of it). In the UK we have trained individuals as press liaison roles whereas in Japan, it appears one day you are a detective investigating a case, the next you could be head of the press office. Six Four also shows the politics and hierarchy within the Japanese police force, it is very dominant theme in the story line and the press office is not viewed as a promotion or the department to work in! The Japanese press appear to have a very different standing and attitude.

I did get confused with names - Mikumo, Mikami and Minakon for example. The names used did feel very authentic but trying to read them as they should possibly be said slowed my reading down. So I came to the arrangement with myself that I would “pronounce” the names in my head in a way that would sound vaguely like they actual would but not necessarily precisely correct.

I couldn't fault the translation; I must admit, I forgot that it was written by a Japanese author and had been translated into English.

Six Four has conspiracy, office politics, kidnapping, cover ups and it’s not the sort of book you can pick up and put down. You have to expect to invest time into this tale – given, on kindle (which is the format I read) it is just short of 600 pages, it’s not a quick read. It is the first Japanese crime fiction I’ve read (I didn’t even know it was such a genre) but I will definitely try some other Japanese crime authors.

Many thanks to Quercus Books, Crime Files and Netgalley for giving me this eBook for my unbiased opinion. ...more

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Jan 22, 2017 Redfield Reads added it · review of another edition

DNF-

So at just under the halfway point this book has beaten me. It just dosent seem to be going anywhere and we are just going round in circles. We are no closer to finding out who commited the crime or where the detectives daughter is. This book does start extremely weak and did take 100 pages before any kind of momentum picks up and its slow at that.

As a Thriller I need it to keep me engaged with the characters and really keep me on the edge of the seat to find out what happens next. The probl ...more

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May 27, 2018 aPriL does feral sometimes rated it really liked it

Shelves: its-not-what-i-was-expecting, literary, illuminating, a-jack-in-the-box-pop-surprise, favorites, mysteries-potboilers-thrillers, twisted-my-synapses-peculiar

‘Six Four’ is a challenging book.

First, it is a literary read which has been translated into English from Japanese.

Second, written by a Japanese author and set in 2002 Japan, the novel is, apparently, extremely Japanese - heirarchical culture, buried volcanic emotions of shame, male character dominance expectations and relationships. The Japanese cultural world of executive or enterprise-level management struggles is closer to what the story is actually about, only it focuses on characters who ...more

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Jun 13, 2018 Ken rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A fascinating slow burning crime drama that really ticks along at an intriguing pace.
It wasn’t what I was expecting, which made me enjoy it even more!

I’ve had this on my shelf for quite awhile, as I’ve set the task of reading a book from each of the 32 countries represented at this summers FIFA World Cup, this was an obvious choice for Japan.
I want to experience all different cultures through June and July and this book certainly achieved that.

The plot focuses on a cold case in the Japanese pol ...more

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Mar 30, 2016 Deborah rated it liked it · review of another edition

I must confess my surprise that I got through this novel. At 635 pages it’s far longer than I’m used to.

Interestingly though I was ultimately quite intrigued and read it in just a couple of sittings.

And yet… I cannot really say I enjoyed it.

Superintendent Yoshinobu Mikami has recently taken on the role of Press Director…. a position – it seems – in Japanese policing requires the appointment of a police officer, rather than a civilian. It is – however – part of the Administrative Affairs Depart ...more

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Aug 19, 2017 Michael rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: aa-japanlit, crime, xlong-over-400, masculinismlit, aaa-top-translation, aa-asialit, translation, aaa-favoritefiction, all-five-star, zz2012

190817: this was an unexpected pleasure. i read this in two sittings. this is sort of the opposite from crime pulps i have most enjoyed: this is about three or four times longer, focuses on the politics, the history, of crime and police, set in a different culture, intriguing but not the crime so much as the fallout, and though everyone here also has a role we are never in a more privileged knowledge position than the somewhat disrespected media liaison narrator...

there are also no moments of th 190817: this was an unexpected pleasure. i read this in two sittings. this is sort of the opposite from crime pulps i have most enjoyed: this is about three or four times longer, focuses on the politics, the history, of crime and police, set in a different culture, intriguing but not the crime so much as the fallout, and though everyone here also has a role we are never in a more privileged knowledge position than the somewhat disrespected media liaison narrator...

there are also no moments of thriller, as the blurb misdirects, as the very beginning seems to promise. it turns out that the more compelling focus is the way police and media interact. there are no clear bad and good characters, it is possible to see various points of view, from police propaganda to media scoops. even when other tangential criminal cases arise, behind it all is 'six four'...

following this history of a kidnapping case failure of fourteen years past, this story describes in great thoroughness the political machinations, the press determinations, as this case 'six four' looms in the background as kind of the ongoing metaphor as much present concern. told entirely by the narrator as a former detective demoted to the police media relations, the present narrative covers only a few weeks. but the background, the repressed, the deliberately covered truth of how the police failed to either save the kidnapped or catch the perpetrator, has affected everyone since...

maybe i have just not read enough political 'police procedurals', but i found the book riveting, found it a fascinating examination of japanese work culture, of covering for the boss, of saving face, of trying to maintain careers in face of competitors, of superiors with unreasonable orders... can you really read six hundred forty pages of this? well it works for me. this is one of those books that make me wish i read faster. as translation i would not know quality of original prose, but it moves swiftly, it describes politics and all the unspoken emotions with great efficiency. not a difficult read, not poetic, not literature perhaps, but it keeps you turning pages. for me this is better by far than say stephen king... ...more

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Jan 05, 2017 Gumble's Yard (aka Golden Reviewer) rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016

A lengthy police procedural thriller – translated from Japanese.

The key character is Mikami – a detective now transferred to press relations. His daughter has recently disappeared with no trace other than some silent calls (albeit he is disquieted that many of his colleagues also say that they have had anonymous calls) – but he is also drawn back into an unsolved kidnapping and murder from 14 years ago which his wife also served in (a case known as six four due to its occurrence in the 64th and ...more

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Jul 23, 2017 Jo Ellen Davis rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: finished

This was very long and very detailed. The author did manage to hold my attention, although I was not often enthralled. The last section really picked up in terms of excitement. The list of characters is daunting. The writer was amazing in terms of the tough subject matter which is largely the culture of Japan as it reflects on the police establishment. Most likely it also reflects the overwhelming pressure to succeed and move ahead in professional career status in Japan. I would recommend this t ...more

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Apr 03, 2018 Alexandra rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book took a lot of focus, but it was interesting to learn about bureaucracy and the police force in Japan. I wasn’t very satisfied with the ending, so 3.5 stars.

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About Hideo Yokoyama

Hideo Yokoyama

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Hideo Yokoyama (横山秀夫) worked as an investigative reporter with a regional newspaper north of Tokyo for 12 years before striking out on his own as a fiction writer. He made his literary debut in 1998 when his collection of police stories Kage no kisetsu (Season of Shadows) won the Matsumoto Seicho Prize; the volume was also short-listed for the Naoki Prize. In 2000 his story Doki (Motive) was awar ...more