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Tokyo, 1995: Five men meet at the racetrack every Sunday to bet on horses.
Lady Joker
What you need to know before your trail
Five men meet at the racetrack every Sunday to bet on horses. They have little in common except a deep disaffection with their lives, but together they represent the social struggles and griefs of post-War Japan: a poorly socialized genius stuck working as a welder; a demoted detective with a chip on his shoulder; a Zainichi Korean banker sick of being ostracized for his ethnicity; a struggling single dad of a teenage girl with Down syndrome. The fifth man bringing them all together is an elderly drugstore owner grieving his grandson, who died in suspicious circumstances.
Intent on revenge against a society that values corporate behemoths more than human life, the five conspirators decide to carry out a heist: kidnap the CEO of Japan’s largest beer conglomerate and extract blood money from the company’s corrupt financiers.
Locations
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The dark side of Tokyo
From the racecourse in the city to the police station and the streets around it, this is the novel to show the very dark sides of Tokyo.
The book was inspired by the infamous unsolved true-crime kidnapping case – The Monster with 21 Faces. In 1984, two masked men armed with a pistol and rifle (later assumed to be toy guns) used a key stolen from the home next door to enter the home of Ezaki Glico president, Katsuhisa Ezaki. Ezaki Glico and Morinaga was a industrial conglomerate.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Lady Joker
Destination/Location: Tokyo Author: Kaoru Takamura Departure: 1995
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