Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, by Jake Adelstein ★★★★

[mithriltabby]

I discovered Jake Adelstein’s book via a post on BoingBoing, and was sufficiently intrigued to pick up the book. (Another good post is when Adelstein gets real yakuza to review the game Yakuza 3.) His book tells how he became a reporter for the Yomiuri Shinbun and wound up on the police beat, provides a good look into some of the seedier parts of Japanese culture, and gives examples of how convoluted the relationship can be between the yakuza and the government. (At one point, a gangster asks him for a favor to help figure out which fellow gangster is spreading rumors about him that are affecting his ability to be friendly with the police; this leads to the gangster becoming a valuable source.) The book gets quite dark at points, as Adelstein doesn’t spare the reader when it comes to the ugly details of human trafficking.