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Kinki Lullaby
In Association with Amazon.com
Wisecracking reporter and reluctant detective Billy Chaka is back, his latest misadventure bringing him to Osaka to accept an award for an article he’d written about a teenage bunraku puppet prodigy named Tetsuo. Billy quickly learns, however, that Tetsuo has been expelled from Osaka’s most prestigious theatre company following a bloody, unexplained incident involving a fellow puppeteer.
While Billy tries to unravel that mystery, an American man in the hotel room next door is found brutally murdered. Investigating the homicide and its bizarre link to the young puppeteer plunges Billy into a shadowy world where dreams and reality violently intermingle and people are never who they seem – a world not far removed from that of the bunraku theatre that flourished in Osaka hundreds of years ago, stylishly recast for the neon stage with decrepit gangsters, clueless expatriates, dangerous women, and one seriously deranged hotel employee. Two parts noir and one part playful irreverence, Kinki Lullaby is a sly whodunit that unfolds with the twisted charm of a fever dream.
PRAISE FOR KINKI LULLABY
"With a shifty plot, shadowy settings, oddball characters and dollops of Bunraku lore sprinkled throughout, Kinki Lullaby is unfailingly entertaining.”
--Washington Post
"Anyone who has followed the Billy Chaka series knows that author Adamson's approach to crime fiction is innovative, dark, idiosyncratic and fast-paced. The rapid-fire conclusion of Kinki Lullaby cements Adamson as a name to watch.”
--January Magazine
"Adamson combines noir mystery style with elements of Japanese animation: weird characters, fast-paced plot, quirky humor. Even now, in its fourth book, the series still feels fresh and exciting, and the author's jokes still hit their mark. Billy's the kind of guy they ought to make a movie about--or, at the very least, put in hard covers for a change."
--Booklist
”It's rather like Lost in Translation meets Raymond Chandler and The Big Sleep with Ridley Scott handling the visuals…Adamson manages to capture the pathos and ennui associated with overwhelming urbanization, and the story floats along like some sort of waking dream, a fevered fusion of noir sensibilities and madcap mayhem.”
--PennLive
"I must plead mea culpa to the cardinal sin of judging a book by its cover. Like the covers on Issac Adamson's predecessors, "Tokyo Sucker Punch" and "Hokkaido Popsicle," "Kinki Lullaby" is festooned with garish artwork, and I was forced to overcome a certain initial distaste to purchase and read it. I'm certainly glad I did: The book hums with lively prose that, title aside, won't put readers to sleep.”
--JapanTimes
