Every now and again, I enjoy a good true crime story, be it in a book or as a binge watch. People Who Eat Darkness was especially compelling because I’m fascinated by the hostess culture in Japan.

Synopsis:

An incisive and compelling account of the case of Lucie Blackman. Lucie Blackman – tall, blonde, and 21 years old – stepped out into the vastness of Tokyo in the summer of 2000, and disappeared forever. The following winter, her dismembered remains were found buried in a seaside cave.

The seven months in between had seen a massive search for the missing girl, involving Japanese policemen, British private detectives, Australian dowsers and Lucie’s desperate, but bitterly divided, parents. As the case unfolded, it drew the attention of prime ministers and sado-masochists, ambassadors and con-men, and reporters from across the world. Had Lucie been abducted by a religious cult, or snatched by human traffickers? Who was the mysterious man she had gone to meet? And what did her work, as a ‘hostess’ in the notorious Roppongi district of Tokyo, really involve?

Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, has followed the case since Lucie’s disappearance. Over the course of a decade, he has travelled to four continents to interview those caught up in the story, fought off a legal attack in the Japanese courts, and worked undercover as a barman in a Roppongi strip club. He has talked exhaustively to Lucie’s friends and family and won unique access to the Japanese detectives who investigated the case. And he has delved into the mind and background of the man accused of the crime – Joji Obara, described by the judge as ‘unprecedented and extremely evil’.

With the finesse of a novelist, he reveals the astonishing truth about Lucie and her fate.

‘People Who Eat Darkness’ is, by turns, a non-fiction thriller, a courtroom drama and the biography of both a victim and a killer. It is the story of a young woman who fell prey to unspeakable evil, and of a loving family torn apart by grief. And it is a fascinating insight into one of the world’s most baffling and mysterious societies, a light shone into dark corners of Japan that the rest of the world has never glimpsed before.

Why I Love It:

I met a friend of mine a year after we’d graduated high school. She’d been in Japan as a hostess and regaled me with tales of expensive jewelry and offers of trips to Paris in exchange for making conversation with Japanese businessmen. I remember thinking “What the hell are you doing?” because it seemed like everything with this job could go sideways so quickly.

Having since been to Japan and spent a night in Roppongi, I’m even more fascinated by this world. Parry does an excellent job laying out both the district’s allure for and mindsets of the foreigners and Japanese men who frequent these clubs, as well as painting an intimate portrait of one young woman sadly killed by a monster who was able to exist for a very long time in the shadows of Roppongi.

This is a chilling and disturbing tale of a sexual predator, so make sure that you are okay to read the details. However, if you enjoy true crime, People Who Eat Darkness is a great read.

The post Curl up with a good book Sunday: People Who Eat Darkness appeared first on Tellulah Darling - YA romantic comedy author.