The first thing that attracted me to this book was its colourful cover, and it’s bookmark ribbon – I didn’t know books came with those anymore!

This book was originally written in Japanese but has been translated.  It tells the story of a Japanese man named Kenji who is self employed as a tour guide.  He’s now a regular tour guide, however, he specialises in guiding “gaijin” (foreigners) around Tokyo’s sex scenes, brothels, peep shows, etc.

One evening he reads the story of a schoolgirl who was found killed and dismembered nearby.  This worries Kenji as he feels that the crime was not committed by a Japanese person as it feels too gory.  Later that evening he meets up with an American tourist, Frank, who wishes to hire him for three evenings. Kenji gets a strange, uneasy feeling from Frank but he agrees to accompany him nonetheless. As the evening goes on he begins to grow more and more wary of Frank as he notices his strange rubber-like skin, his lies, and his angry outbursts. As the days go on so does Frank’s strangeness. Kenji begins to suspect Frank of the schoolgirl’s murder but he wouldn’t kill anyone… Would he?

This was the first book that I have read by Ryu Murakami and it will not be the last! It is difficult to write a creepy book but the author does an amazing job of it. My skin was crawling when I read any description of Frank. I have never felt so awkward and uneasy when reading a book before and I loved it! I felt the ending was very lackluster however, it felt like it was just not thought out very well and I had so many questions which were not answered. However, the book started off so well that I feel that no matter what the ending was it wouldn’t have been satisfactory.

I give this book 4/5 stars and would highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of creepy thrillers.