BLACK RAIN IN LITTLE TOKYO
By M. WARD LEON
A dark cloud hung over Little Tokyo in Southern California. The Los Angeles chapter of Japan's notorious criminal gang, known as the Yakuza, has a deadly grip on the Japanese community. They quickly established an elaborate organization involving extortion, loan sharking, drugs, and money laundering. Initially, many local merchants complained to the police. Those who dared to speak up faced unexplained "accidents," some of which were fatal. The Japanese community soon fell in line and became silent.
Detective Sergeant Tanaka of the Los Angeles Police Department has grown increasingly frustrated with the department's persistent lack of success. Running out of options, Tanaka reaches out to his old friend and private investigator, John Marlboro, for help. Marlboro is asked to go undercover. Tanaka likes Marlboro for his ability to speak a smattering of Japanese and for his tenacity as a hard-nosed, old-school shamus. He will partner with Officer Hana Wakabayashi, a five-foot-five vision of beauty who ranked at the top of her class in the firing range and holds a black belt in karate. Together, they will pose as husband and wife, opening a paint store in the heart of Little Tokyo. It didn't take long for Marlboro and Wakabayashi to get the Yakuza's attention. Soon, they began to disrupt, disorganize, and inconvenience their criminal operation to the point where the overlord, Kio Kobayashi, declared war on the Gaijin (outsider) and his whore. Eventually, all Hell breaks loose, and things go from bad to worse for the Yakuza.
It's a story of murder, gangsters, sex, yubitsume, seppuku, and sushi.
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Paperback: 280 pages
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Publisher: Beacon Publishing Group
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Language: English
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ISBN-13: 978-1961504240
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Category: Suspense | Thriller Fiction
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About Author
M Ward Leon is a former advertising creative director who started his career at Doyle Dane Bernbach, New York, during the Madmen era. While at DDB his writing on the Volkswagen Rabbit campaign won him inclusion into the Smithsonian Institution Advertising Archives. Recently his writing has earned him two Emmy Awards for Public Service advertising. He is a graduate of California State University Los Angeles and an alumnus of Art Center College of Design.
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