Takino lives a simple life running a grocery store, while his wife, Yukie, runs a coffee shop upstairs. But as soon as Kenzo Kitakata’s THE CAGE starts, another side of Takino emerges: a side of his life that has been dormant for many a year.
He is a reformed gangster who has seen the errors of his ways, but it all comes flooding back when some young upstart tries to muscle in on Takino’s life and business — a wrong move on the youngster’s part, since it becomes obvious Takino is not a man to mess with. After their first run-in, Takino is thrilled with the experience and has a revelation that he sorely misses his old ways.
This is material that has been covered a ‘ of times by countless authors, with the main difference in THE CAGE is that its heavily influenced by Japanese culture, with Takino coming to grips that as hard as he tried living the quiet life, it’s the gangster inside him that has been dormant too long. Once his inner gangster has been awaken, he just can’t deal with the daily life of managing the supermarket anymore, so he looks for an old contact of his for a job, just for the thrill of it.
This brings into Takino’s world the attention of Takagi, a determined police detective who won’t rest until his case is closed. The novel presents these two men as sort of opposite sides of the coin, in that one can’t really live without the other, with the surprise that Takagi can be just as brutal to his suspects as Takino is to any one who crosses him.
Kitakata’s story is nothing new to crime fans: the criminal and cop, ending in a giant chase sequence. But the author does a fine job building tension throughout, and the way he deconstructs Takino’s once-suburban life back into the world of the yakuza will win over readers.
But be forewarned: Some of the names are really easy to confuse with one another, and you might get lost in the litany of street names and geography in which the book takes place. That’s to be expected since it was written for a Japanese audience, and this Vertical Inc. release is a tremendous job of translation by Paul Warham.
Kitakata is worth seeking out for anyone needing an international crime fix. I just wish the plot were a little fresher. —Bruce Grossman
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- The Cage
- The Princes of the Golden Cage
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