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Hana Walker Mysteries #1
Half Life
A missing girl. A natural disaster. A teenager who won’t give up. Hana Walker is a 19-year-old waitress who is struggling to put the pieces of her life back together after the deaths of her English father and Japanese mother. But when she decides to help a jilted American father find Emi, his beloved daughter abducted in Japan, Hana discovers that taking matters into her own hands leaves her on the wrong side of the law — and the yakuza. Now she faces her severest danger, as the country is devastated by earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown. Time is running out. Is her tenacity, smartphone prowess and love of natto enough to find a lost girl in a nation reeling from disaster? Can Hana stay out of the hands of the police long enough to find her before the yakuza do? Read Half Life, the thrilling debut mystery by an insightful writer on contemporary Japan.
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2013
2 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
Our Man in Abiko
5 books11 followersOur Man in Abiko is a British blogger living in Abiko, a commuter town on the edge of Tokyo. He still blogs and such, but he writes books under his real name these days.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 15, 2018
I'm writing the third installment right now in this series and I thought I ought to read the first one (Half Life) again to keep everything consistent as it's been six years since I wrote it and I've forgotten much of it. In my mind I thought it was not terrible but full of first-novel errors. And my memory wasn't far off. OK, the bad points: there was a little too much exposition disguised as dialogue, too many coincidences and convenient discoveries, a couple of the characters behaved in unbelievable ways and some of the action stretched credibility to breaking point. Oh, and the beginning dragged a little. But there were redeeming features: Hana is quite a character, unknowingly funny and a bit of a rascal; the use of real locations in Abiko and references to real books were great; there were moments of real suspense; and the novel's pace picked up well to a good conclusion. OK, it was a far from perfect read, but for a first novel, it wasn't half bad, something I can be proud of, and improve upon. Download my starter library for free here - http://eepurl.com/bFkt0X - and receive my monthly newsletter with book recommendations galore for the Japanophile, crime-fiction-lover in all of us.
January 18, 2018
I hate to give a low rating but I struggled to finish this. Interesting premise for a novel but motives were unclear, characters not fully-developed and read more like teen fiction. Perhaps I'm just not the target audience.
June 23, 2012
I loved this. It was quirky, fast paced, and kept me on my toes. I love how everything connected together; sometimes in very profound ways, other times in random ways. The characters were all very real, and Hana had a strong voice. I really admired her. The setting of Abiko was very easy to imagine, and I often had the scenes playing out in my head like a movie. This was one of the best books I've read all year!
July 26, 2012
I took this as my holiday read, and I'm so glad I did!
wonderful and engaging story that had me laughing out loud so many times. Such a natural humour, I loved it.
The story is exciting, moving, paced well and there were times I really couldn't put it down.
The dialogue is awesome, oh if only it could be a play...
wonderful and engaging story that had me laughing out loud so many times. Such a natural humour, I loved it.
The story is exciting, moving, paced well and there were times I really couldn't put it down.
The dialogue is awesome, oh if only it could be a play...
June 20, 2012
In Our Man's entirely biased view, this is brilliant, of course. He can also tell you this: it's been his life work since even before Quakebook, and he is so glad to get this monkey off his back. Now the search for more monkeys can begin.
February 19, 2017
Really enjoyed this one. Great beach read. I live in Japan, so this one was fun for me. A mystery set in modern day Japan. It has a little bit of everything; Yakuza, Japanese food, typhoons, nuclear disaster... Check it out!
March 2, 2016
Literally took me four years to read this. When I left Japan, life got busy, I went for a masters degree that saw me generally reading mountains of nonfiction or fiction very germane to studies. My tastes have also shifted from fiction. I'd generally like to read reality (Minus Flashman fiction perhaps). So this sat there, staring at me on my "currently reading" list forever, with me on perhaps page 10.
I both wanted to polish off this book written by the man formally known as Our Man in Abiko, and I really want to clear my damn list. So I finally dug in and got to it.
It's hard to review from a critical standpoint, as the novel serves as both a nostalgia piece and a dream piece. This piece comes from the 3/11 +/- time when Japanese expats interacted daily and continuously on twitter, and the whole "twitter vehicle" that this rides upon (and well, the author and the various struggles of Japan that exist within the book) all remind me of that time. In addition, I now have a Japanese/American baby girl and I saw myself visualizing a future where she's a spunky, smart girl navigating a world between her Western heritage and Japanese heritage.
As such, I can't really say if this is worth a read to YOU in particular. If you were there in the trenches of Japan with Our Man and friends and now have a Japanese American child, it might be up your alley. If not, I dunno.
As an editor, I did spot some mistakes and logic gaps, but it was the guy's first self-pub'd book. I'll give him a pass. I like his characters and I'll read the next one. I'm excited to see the characters do more and slowly move beyond the "Japan stuff." It kind of remind me of the Fargo TV show. The first season was a lot of fun, but it constantly felt like the show was saying "Look, we're Fargoing!" Season two elevated the game by being comfortable in those shoes and not feeling the need to do that. It happened in that world, but didn't have to constantly tell you so. If "Our Man" takes these fun characters and can inhabit his neat little world of Japan without "Look, we're Japaning!" I think we'll have a special book.
I both wanted to polish off this book written by the man formally known as Our Man in Abiko, and I really want to clear my damn list. So I finally dug in and got to it.
It's hard to review from a critical standpoint, as the novel serves as both a nostalgia piece and a dream piece. This piece comes from the 3/11 +/- time when Japanese expats interacted daily and continuously on twitter, and the whole "twitter vehicle" that this rides upon (and well, the author and the various struggles of Japan that exist within the book) all remind me of that time. In addition, I now have a Japanese/American baby girl and I saw myself visualizing a future where she's a spunky, smart girl navigating a world between her Western heritage and Japanese heritage.
As such, I can't really say if this is worth a read to YOU in particular. If you were there in the trenches of Japan with Our Man and friends and now have a Japanese American child, it might be up your alley. If not, I dunno.
As an editor, I did spot some mistakes and logic gaps, but it was the guy's first self-pub'd book. I'll give him a pass. I like his characters and I'll read the next one. I'm excited to see the characters do more and slowly move beyond the "Japan stuff." It kind of remind me of the Fargo TV show. The first season was a lot of fun, but it constantly felt like the show was saying "Look, we're Fargoing!" Season two elevated the game by being comfortable in those shoes and not feeling the need to do that. It happened in that world, but didn't have to constantly tell you so. If "Our Man" takes these fun characters and can inhabit his neat little world of Japan without "Look, we're Japaning!" I think we'll have a special book.
November 4, 2024
Join detective Hana Walker on an exciting quest that will take her far from her Abiko home to find schoolgirl Emi Blackmore, missing in Ishinomaki in the North of Japan, on behalf of Emi’s estranged and distraught father, while getting some disgruntled gangsters off her back and trying to come to terms with her own chequered family history.
Hana’s mission is realistically located in the Japan residents will recognise as the one they sometimes love to loathe, peopled by less-than-helpful bureaucrats, crabby ramen shop grandmas and inept English teachers, bedevilled by mama-charis, noisy pachinko parlours and daytime cooking shows. Tatami mats, onsen, 100-yen stores and ‘nihongo jouzu’: it’s all here. American tourists wear cowboy hats, the yakuza exude menace, and so life for the characters is proceeding in its almost-usual channels as the clock ticks around to 2:46pm on 11 March 2011, the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Hana’s mission is realistically located in the Japan residents will recognise as the one they sometimes love to loathe, peopled by less-than-helpful bureaucrats, crabby ramen shop grandmas and inept English teachers, bedevilled by mama-charis, noisy pachinko parlours and daytime cooking shows. Tatami mats, onsen, 100-yen stores and ‘nihongo jouzu’: it’s all here. American tourists wear cowboy hats, the yakuza exude menace, and so life for the characters is proceeding in its almost-usual channels as the clock ticks around to 2:46pm on 11 March 2011, the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
December 18, 2012
Well done! Characters were vivid and the plot was well-driven. Like the author, i too live in japan so It was interesting to read the differences between the countryside and the city. Almost seems appealing in a way. Early on I got a bit confused with the characters. Who was who, and that had originally turned me off but then I returned to it recently and I'm glad I did! The subtle and not-so subtle details of Japanese lifestyle and customs was my faivorite area. The foreign born author clearly has an understanding of these and the formidable ability/talent to convey these to the readers while making it seem first nature to characters who were raised amid it. once again, well done our man!
March 28, 2013
This book is so wonderful, quirky, strange and OMG YAKUZA. Hana is such a lovely protagonist, and the ending made me SO HAPPY AND SO SAD, and just I have all the feelings in the world. Hana's voice felt so real, and I really adored the structure of this story. The twitterfeed aspect was wonderful to follow, and I just couldn't get over how incredibly methodical this book truly is. Read it, it's worth the experience.
December 8, 2013
I'll probably read book two
January 10, 2014
Was quite interesting, looking forward to the second one.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews