Bullet Train By Kotaro Isaka

Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka

Japanese crime fiction

Original title – Maria Bītoru (Maria Beetle) (マリアビートル)

Translator – Sam Malissa

Source – Personal copy

I don’t buy many crime novels but when I  this book caught my eye and I saw it was set on the Bullet train.  Which is on my bucket list of things to try at some point I just love the speed and whole look of the trains . Plus I have a soft spot for crime books set on Trains. This Kotaro won a prize for his debut novel and a lot of his subsequent novels have been shortlisted for Naoki Prize is a sister prize to the Akutagawa prize both run by the same people it highlights rising stars of Japanese fiction. This book has been translated into a number of languages and has seen it been made into an Ensemble film that will star Brad Pitt.

Tokyo station is packed. It’s been a while since Yuichi Kimura was here last, so he isn’t sure if it’s always this crowded. He’d believe it if someone told him therewas a special event going on. The throngs of people coming and going press in him, reminding him of a tv show he and Watura had watched togeth the one about penguins, all jammed in tight together. At least the penguins have an excuse, thinks Kimura. it’s freezing where they live.

Kimura thinks of his son and is on the train to get his killer !!

The book follows a bullet train journey from Tokyo to Morika that has seen the train leave Tokyo with a number of assains onboard train the first is a young man  Satoshi a young man that seems from the outside just like a normal teen and that is his beauty as he really is a deadly assassin and he is being tracked by the Kimura whose young son was caught up in his last job so he has come to kill the young assassin then we have the Nanao or Lady bird another assassin that has had a run of bad luck then we have two assains just known as Tangerine and Lemon, they spend a lot of the trip discussing Thomas the Tank engine which made me laugh. They all have various jobs to do some of them have the cash that is in a case to recover their revenge to sort other a target to kill. But as the journey moves and they move through the train we see that a lot of what has happened and brought this many assains together is interconnect as what has happened to get them as the action unwinds,  so we see in to the past events of them and why they are there and present of each person as we head to the end. The action is shown in each chapter as to where they are on the train or in over in other cases events off the train.  Who will survive the journey and who will complete the jobs they have been sent to do!

“Who’s Edward ?”

“One of thomas the tank Engine’s friends. Engine numer two”. Lemon launches automatically into the character description he’d memorised. ” A very friendly engine, kind to everyone. He once helped push Gordon up a hill and another time saved trevor from almost being scrapped. Everyone on the island of odor knows they can count on Edward”

“wow did youlearn all that by Heart?”

“If Thomas was on the college entrance exams. I’d have got into Tokyo U! “with that lemon walks on, exiting car number four.

I loved this little bit of Thomas the tank engine elsewhere they talk about under siege2  film set on a train as well .

I like this I am as many of you know not a huge crime fiction reader but over the last few years I am liking more crime novels from Japan now this has a nod towards being a film I felt it was one of those novels you could see would be a great film there is a nod to the classic train crime novel but what he has done here is throw in a lot of plots and twists and some unique characters. At times it is maybe a bit daft but I liked the silly chatting about Thomas the Tank engine and things like that the two characters Tangerine and Lemon are very Tarantino to me I was reminded of the round the table discussions in reservoir dog and also the names remind of Mr brown etc from that film with the two just called after some fruit. Are there other fruit assassins out there like an apple and pear somewhere etc. Dark with comic parts as the characters interact with each other and we find out what has brought them all to be on this train at the same time. If Agathe Christie had written a yakuza novel set on a train,  then given it Tarantino to make into a film this would be the novel of that film. Have you a favorite Japanese crime Novel ?

Winstons score – B a steady crime novel that has a cinematic sense to it.