One of the most famous novels by acclaimed contemporary Japanese detective writer Yori Fujihara. Haley’s meticulousness, Chandler’s sad irony, Murakami’s mysticism, and the novel’s heroes in the spirit of Takeshi Kitano’s films brought the author runaway popularity. “An Umbrella for the Terrorist” won the highest Japanese prize in its genre—the Edogawa Rampo Prize.
The hero of this novel is a bartender in a tiny pub and a long-time alcoholic—yet he accidentally becomes a witness to a terrorist attack in Tokyo’s central park. Among the many victims of the bombing is the head of the counter-terrorism office, as well as our hero’s best friend and former lover, whom he hasn’t seen for a quarter of a century since the late 1960s student unrest. For all those years, he wanted to escape the past and the secrets hidden in it—but now the past has caught up with him on its own, sweeping him into a bloody maelstrom in which the interests of the yakuza, terrorist plans, revenge for betrayed friendship, and big money are intertwined…