Shinjuku Shark (Shinjuku Shark Series #1) Book

Shinjuku Shark is the first novel in the bestselling Japanese crime series and winner of the Japan Mystery Writers Association Award. Over his career Arimasa Osawa has won numerous prizes and his writing has been adapted for the big and small screen. The back of the book blurb states, "Prepare for a relentless journey of suspenseful twists and turns that will leave you breathless." Given all the plaudits I was expecting a terrific read. Unfortunately the book did not leave me in a state of suspense or breathless. The story is relatively straightforward, Samejima is a simulacrum of every maverick cop on the planet, and the writing is mostly flat and lifeless. Clearly there is something going on here. My suspicion is that Japanese probably has a different narrative and sentence structure, as well as diction, which makes translation that captures the subtleties and sophistication of writing quite difficult. As a result, perhaps the work is not necessarily shown in its best light and it's a passable read at best.