Bøker av Michael Pronko

In Tokyo, there isn't always respect for older people. Sometimes, it's the opposite.Winner Mystery Independent Press Award (2023)Finalist SPR Book Awards (2023)Gold Award Literary Titan (2023)Editor's Choice AudiobookBlog.com (2023)After the suspicious deaths of a seventy-something woman and a student recluse, Detective Hiroshi tracks down a gang of scammers who target retirees, robbing them of their pensions, life savings, and even the deeds to their homes. Hiroshi teams up with Detective Ishii, who's been running a women's crime task force. Together, they find out who has been ripping off the pensions, life savings, and deeds to homes in shitamachi, the older, eastern side of the city.With his personal life on hold (almost), Hiroshi finds out how complex the traditional life of Tokyo still is. With old-school Detective Takamatsu and ex-sumo wrestler Chief Sakaguchi watching his back, he finds out who's behind the scams, and who's behind the scammers."Pronko's knowledge of Japanese life is simply extraordinary-with painstaking care, he limns its shadowy contours and ambiguities. An absorbing drama conveyed with incisive intelligence."-Kirkus ReviewsShitamachi Scam is the sixth book in the Tokyo-based Detective Hiroshi series by award-winning author Michael Pronko.

Money isn't the only thing. It's the deadly thing.Brag Medallion Honoree Book Readers Appreciation Group (2023)Winner Best Crime Thriller BestThrillers.com (2022)Winner Mystery Independent Press Award (2023)After the murder of a high-flying executive in one of Tokyo's wealth management firms, Detective Hiroshi finds himself investigating the financial schemes that secure the money of Tokyo's elite investors. His forensic accounting gets sidetracked, though, by a second murder and the abduction of two girls from the home of a hotshot wealth manager.The abducted girls are the daughters of an international couple who seemed to have it all-a large apartment in the high-end Azabu district, top schools for the children, and a life of happy affluence. Their life falls apart and they are swept up in threats and pursuits for reasons they cannot fathom.Tracking the money and tracking the two daughters leads Hiroshi into Tokyo's murky financial past and outside Japan's porous borders as he discovers how overseas investments and tax shelters are really managed.Hiroshi works with Sakaguchi and Takamatsu and others on the homicide team, including an assertive new detective, as they confront greed and violence in one of the wealthiest cities in the world."A series that's only getting better."-Kirkus ReviewsAzabu Getaway is the fifth book in the Tokyo-based Detective Hiroshi series by award-winning author Michael Pronko.

What happens when large bugs get trapped on crowded Tokyo trains? How does allergy season affect Tokyo's millions? Ever wonder why Japanese love to take photos together or how everyone feels during rainy season? How is Tokyo made so compact and made as much from imagination as from concrete and steel? Longtime resident, writer and professor Michael Pronko shows just why Tokyo life is equal parts trial and joy. This collection offers up essential skills for living in the vastest, most crowded city in the world-sweating politely, suffering noise and glancing in mirrors--and muses over the minutest of daily details-window flowers, eye contact and small gestures of thanks. If you're traveling to Tokyo, these essays point you toward the undercurrents of life and if you've ever considered visiting Tokyo, these essays will give you more reasons to go. Tokyo's Mystery Deepens brings together essays from Pronko's monthly column in Newsweek Japan, which has remained highly popular with Japanese readers for the last ten years. Originally published in Japanese, these concise, pointed essays are available in English for the first time. As with the first collection, Beauty and Chaos, Pronko examines Tokyo as a city, a culture and an overpowering experience. Tokyo's Mystery Deepens taps into the enigmatic sides of Tokyo with humor, delicacy and a large dose of healthy confusion. Praise for Beauty and Chaos:"e;Japanese who are used to Tokyo are caught off guard by his conclusions derived from careful observation, and are struck dumb...Tokyo, the city we are so careless of, suddenly starts to become glorious. It is a wonder!"e; Chunichi Shimbun (Newspaper) (translated from Japanese version) "e;Giving up the bias and seeing the city with completely different standards, you will see the unexpected, attractive face of Tokyo. This book is a guide for rediscovering Tokyo that lets us see the city with unique new features."e; Nikkan Gendai (translated from Japanese version) Japanese version available from KADOKAWA Publishers as: a E a aa a aeZaaSae-aae*aa a zaaa a a -a -a ae'-)

Running from a life she didn't choose, in a city she doesn't know, Sukanya, a young Thai girl, escapes into Tokyo. With her Bangkok street smarts, she stays ahead of traffickers willing to do anything to recover the computer she took when she fled a murder scene. After befriending Chiho, a Japanese girl living in an internet café, Sukanya tries to rid herself of her pursuers, and her past, forever.Meanwhile, Detective Hiroshi Shimizu leaves the safe confines of his office to investigate a triple murder at a porn studio. The studio's accounts point him in multiple directions at once. Together with ex-sumo wrestler Sakaguchi and old-school Takamatsu, Hiroshi tracks the killers through Tokyo's teen hangouts, bayside docks, and crowded squares, straight into the underbelly of the global economy.As bodies wash up from Tokyo Bay, Hiroshi tries to find the Thai girl whose name he doesn't even know. He uncovers trafficking rings and cryptocurrency scammers whose connections extend to the highest levels of Tokyo's power elite.TOKYO TRAFFIC is the third in the Tokyo-based Detective Hiroshi series by award-winning author Michael Pronko.

Winner Shelf Unbound Best Independently Published Book 2018Solo Medalist Winner New Apple Awards for Excellence 2017  Winner Crime Fiction Beverly Hills Book Awards 2017Winner Best Mystery Book Excellence Awards 2017Detective Hiroshi Shimizu investigates white collar crime in Tokyo. When an American businessman turns up dead, his mentor Takamatsu calls him out to the site of a grisly murder. A glimpse from a security camera video suggests the killer might be a woman. Hiroshi quickly learns how close homicide and suicide can appear in a city full of high-speed trains just a step—or a push—away.Takamatsu drags Hiroshi out to the hostess clubs and skyscraper offices of Tokyo in search of the killer. Hiroshi goes deeper and deeper into Tokyo’s intricate, perilous market for buying and selling the most expensive land in the world. He teams up with ex-sumo wrestler Sakaguchi to scour Tokyo’s sacred temples, corporate offices and industrial wastelands to find out why one woman was driven to murder.After years in America and lost in neat, clean spreadsheets, Hiroshi confronts the stark realities of the biggest city in the world, where inside information can travel in a flash from the insiders at top investment firms to street-level punks and teenage hostesses, everyone scrambling for their cut of Tokyo’s lucrative land deals.Hiroshi’s determined to cut through Japan’s ambiguities—and dangers—to find the murdering ex-hostess before she extracts her final revenge—which just might be him.More at: www.michaelpronko.com

Motions and Moments: More Essays on TokyoMotions and Moments is the third book by Michael Pronko on the fluid feel and vibrant confusions of Tokyo life. These 42 new essays burrow into the unique intensities that suffuse the city and ponder what they mean to its millions of inhabitants. Based on Pronko's 18 years living, teaching and writing in Tokyo, these essays on how Tokyoites work, dress, commute, eat and sleep are steeped in insights into the city's odd structures, intricate pleasures and engaging undertow. Included are essays on living to size and loving the crowd, on Tokyo's dizzying uncertainties and daily satisfactions, and on the 2011 earthquake. As in his first two books, this collection captures the ceaseless flow and passing flashes of life in biggest city in the world with gentle humor and rich detail. Praise for the first collection, Beauty and Chaos: Slices and Morsels of Tokyo Life:"e;A clear-eyed but affectionate portrait of a city that reaches beyond simple stereotypes. An elegantly written, precisely observed portrait of a Japanese city and its culture."e; Kirkus Reviews"e;Beauty and Chaos is a spectacular read. Its essays are long enough to be cohesive and provocative while remaining short and sweet. The collection is masterful and unique."e; Stephanie Chandler, SPR Review"e;He notices the kinds of things that might be taken for granted by the Japanese and overlooked entirely by visitors."e; Rebecca Foster, The BookbagGold Award First Place for Cultural Non-Fiction (Reader's Favorite Awards 2015)Gold Award (Non-Fiction Authors Association 2015)Praise for the second collection, Tokyo's Mystery Deepens: Essays on Tokyo:"e;As chapters flow through Tokyo cultural experiences, readers receive a rare glimpse of the structure and nature of Tokyo's underlying psyche. It's a powerful, intimate consideration of many aspects of Japanese culture."e; D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review"e;An insider's view of what life is really like in this pulsing, densely populated Asian metropolis...this little book of short, easy to read essays delivers to its readers an education."e; Vera A. Pereskokova Luxury Reading Blog"e;Could one have a better guide? Anyone planning to work and live in Tokyo for a period of time will find Pronko indispensable."e; BookReview.com"e;Tokyo's Mystery Deepens is so much more than just a guidebook to Tokyo...it actually plunges into the minuscule details of what it is like to be a Tokyoite."e; OnlineBookClub.orgGold Award for Creative Non-Fiction (eLit Awards 2015)Silver Award for Travel Essay (eLit Award 2015)