Noirboiled Notes

Yamsaki Asami undid his belt, then plucked gently at his zipper and slowly pulled it down, like a surgeon opening an incision. Ryu Murakami ...

Whenever the gray fog lifts for a second, there they are: the wall, the tower. They scare you stiff, they make you mad, but there's less...

Noirish psychological realism + surrealistic whimsy = tedium. Grade: D+

Aoyama is a widower whose teenage son suggests that it might be time for him to remarry. When Aoyama mentions this possibility to a frie...

I recently reread Ryu Murakami's In the Miso Soup , which I reviewed here in October 2008. Here is what I said in that review: In the M...

Spoiler alert: The following review does not tell how Piercing ends, but it may tell more about the set-up for the ending than you want to...

The ghosts of sad, cheap souls live on in sad, cheap furniture. Ryu Murakami ...

In the Miso Soup reminded me quite a bit of Gil Brewer's classic A Killer Is Loose (1954). Both books are narrated by an Ordinary Guy ...