The Moving Blade: Book TWO (Detective Hiroshi Series) by Michael Pronko

In Tokyo, the past is present. And deadly.

When the top American diplomat in Tokyo, Bernard Mattson, is killed, he leaves more than a lifetime of successful Japan-American negotiations. He leaves a missing manuscript, boxes of research, a lost keynote speech and a tangled web of relations.

When his alluring daughter, Jamie, returns from America wanting answers, finding only threats, Detective Hiroshi Shimizu is dragged from the safe confines of his office into the street-level realities of Pacific Rim politics.

A moving blade is hidden in the blur of motion, felt but not perceived.

With help from ex-sumo wrestler Sakaguchi, Hiroshi searches for the killer from Tokyo's back alley bars to government offices, through anti-nuke protests to the gates of an American naval base. When two more bodies turn up, Hiroshi must choose between desire and duty, violence or procedure, before the killer silences his next victim.

·      Selected for Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2018
·      "Nail-biting!" US Review of Books
·      "A solid punch to the gut." Chanticleer Reviews.
·      "One of the year's best thrillers," Best Thrillers.
 
The Moving Blade is the second in the Detective Hiroshi series set deep in Tokyo

One of Best Indie Mysteries and Thrillers Kirkus Reviews (2018)
Grand Prize Winner Chanticleer International Book Awards Global Thrillers (2018)
Gold Award Literary Titan Book Award (2018)
Five Star Honoree B.R.A.G. Medallion (2018)
Gold Award Independent Publisher Awards for Mystery (2019)
Winner Independent Press Award for Crime Fiction (2019)

• ISBN-13 : 978-1942410164
• 320 pages

Michael Pronko is a Tokyo-based writer of murder, memoir and music. His writing about Tokyo life and his character-driven mysteries have won awards and five-star reviews. Kirkus Reviews selected his second novel, The Moving Blade for their Best Books of 2018. The Last Train won the Shelf Unbound Competition for Best Independently Published Book.

Michael also runs the website, Jazz in Japan, which covers the vibrant jazz scene in Tokyo and Yokohama. During his 20 years in Japan, he has written about Japanese culture, art, society and politics for Newsweek Japan, The Japan Times, and Artscape Japan. He has read his essays on NHK TV and done programs for Nippon Television based on his writings. 

A philosophy major, Michael traveled for years, ducking in and out of graduate schools, before finishing his PhD on Charles Dickens and film. He finally settled in Tokyo as a professor of American Literature at Meiji Gakuin University. His seminars focus on contemporary novels, short stories and film adaptations.