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A Dog in Water
Until pain, memory, resignation and fury are all subsumed by the one possible conclusion, a thing or two may just be worth doing. Thus a nameless former cop who should never have become a private detective awaits clients in a dingy office across the street from a Chinese restaurant.
Impeccably paced and snappily told, even when the truth grows murky, hard-boiled has never come as smooth and pure as in this choice distillation by way of Tokyo, Japan. No dogs, cute or otherwise, appear in this novel, in or out of water.
Legendary manga artist Kazuhiro Kiuchi ( Be-bop High School ) makes his English language debut as a novelist!
Impeccably paced and snappily told, even when the truth grows murky, hard-boiled has never come as smooth and pure as in this choice distillation by way of Tokyo, Japan. No dogs, cute or otherwise, appear in this novel, in or out of water.
Legendary manga artist Kazuhiro Kiuchi ( Be-bop High School ) makes his English language debut as a novelist!
204 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 31, 2017
A Japanese crime fiction masterpiece.
August 25, 2016
Love Japanese crime fiction, and loved Kiuchi's A Dog in Water. No dogs, so don't worry, just lots of miserable, violent, hard boiled writing. Written from the first person pov of an unnamed, former cop now pi, the protag is on a downward spiral of truth seeking. Seedy bars, clubs, two-faced women and progressively more damaging beatings make you wonder how this guy can go on. The author is a manga writer, and his unique skills certainly show in this work. It's a must read, for sure.
April 27, 2022
It’s a tough call on Kiuchi to review this having just finished reading one of the greats of 1950s US noir, Charles Willeford.
Kiuchi sets up his novel in the same sort of way. There are 3 parts to the book, the first and last narrated by the unnamed Private Investigator, an ex policeman. The first part sees him deal with a case not related to the rest of the novel, helpfully called ‘A Case Of Little Importance’, though it does help describe his character, and setting.
Then in the second part comes the flavour of 50s noir. By chance the detective picks up a case, a woman overhears he is a detective and approaches him and asks for help. For five years waitress Junko has been in a relationship with the married Koichi, but recently she has been raped by his younger brother, Katsuya, a violent thug who was now blackmailing her.
The PI though is mentally fragile, and seeing a psychologist, and is very reluctant to take a new case, but in the end is compelled to.
It’s entertaining and ticks over at a good pace, but doesn’t break any new ground.
I felt as it was a familiar plot. Though I can’t pin down exactly what it reminds me of, it’s probably because it’s like a collage of various classics.
Nothing special, but sound in its construction.
Kiuchi sets up his novel in the same sort of way. There are 3 parts to the book, the first and last narrated by the unnamed Private Investigator, an ex policeman. The first part sees him deal with a case not related to the rest of the novel, helpfully called ‘A Case Of Little Importance’, though it does help describe his character, and setting.
Then in the second part comes the flavour of 50s noir. By chance the detective picks up a case, a woman overhears he is a detective and approaches him and asks for help. For five years waitress Junko has been in a relationship with the married Koichi, but recently she has been raped by his younger brother, Katsuya, a violent thug who was now blackmailing her.
The PI though is mentally fragile, and seeing a psychologist, and is very reluctant to take a new case, but in the end is compelled to.
It’s entertaining and ticks over at a good pace, but doesn’t break any new ground.
I felt as it was a familiar plot. Though I can’t pin down exactly what it reminds me of, it’s probably because it’s like a collage of various classics.
Nothing special, but sound in its construction.
August 17, 2022
The detective in this novel probably gets his ass beat the most in any book I've ever read. I really enjoyed this one though, the tone is really on point.
September 22, 2017
Like Shield of Straw, Kiuchi's other opus in translation, "A Dog in Water" is a completely moronic, poorly written and/or abysmally translated action movie of a book, real bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. I don't know why I read such garbage sometimes. It's just simple and entertaining. But is it worth the SHAME?
August 11, 2015
Awesome. Didn't think I would like it, but I love crime books and Japanese books and once I started I couldn't put it down. But it was also different from other crime books I've read; I guess because this is what is called hard-boiled. And the more time goes by, the more I think about the story and the characters and how everything was written and came together. Didn't read it in the original Japanese, but I thought the translation was well done and really conveyed the story.
November 14, 2013
Hard-boiled fiction at its hardest. Rocks!
March 11, 2017
a bit absurd in the levels of endurance but pays off in the badassery by its conclusion?
i guess?
i guess?
September 15, 2016
Like a literary version of 'Pulp Fiction' but with a more convoluted plot.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews