These tales from Tokyo's crime beat are not for the faint-hearted...
Picture this: You’re a journalist in a foreign land, and a black-suited Japanese gangster sits in front of you, ordering you to walk away from your job and abandon a provocative story that you were working on. Or, as he succinctly words it: “Either erase the story or we’ll erase you. And maybe your family. But we’ll do them first, so you learn your lesson before you die.”
American crime reporter Jake Adelstein was put in that exact position. He agrees not to publish the story in the biggest newspaper in Tokyo, quit his job and moved back to the US with his family… And then he wrote this book.
Adelstein left the United States for Japan at the age of 19 and was put on the police beat at Tokyo’s Yomiuri Shumbun after going through a gruelling recruitment process that comprised of an exam and three rounds of interviews.
The only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Press Club, Adelstein covered the seedy side of Japan for twelve years until he uncovered a story that was worth half a million dollars to the Japanese yakuza.
Adelstein found that notorious gangster Tadamasa Goto flew to Los Angeles for a liver transplant with the help of the FBI in exchange for information on other Japanese mobs. The yakuza boss found out about the scoop, and sent the aforementioned gangster to intimidate and threaten Adelstein.
When a member of a rival faction was approached for comment, the yakuza offered Adelstein $500,000 to abandon the story. This critically acclaimed narration is not for the faint-hearted – The Japan Times describes Tokyo Vice as “a tale of adrenalin-depleting 80-hour weeks, full ashtrays, uncooperative sources, green tea, hard liquor and forays into the depravity of Shinjuku’s ‘adult entertainment zone’, Kabukicho”.
Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein, Scribe Publications, RRP $35
Review by Walkley Foundation Intern: Eliza Sum
