A literary crime masterpiece that follows a Japanese pickpocket lost to the machinations of fate. Bleak and oozing existential dread, The Thief is simply unforgettable.  
The Thief is a seasoned pickpocket. Anonymous in his tailored suit, he weaves in and out of Tokyo crowds, stealing wallets from strangers so smoothly sometimes he doesn’t even remember the snatch. Most people are just a blur to him, nameless faces from...

A political comedy on two American academics who are recording story-singers in Albania. The two are on a project to show that story-singers were the source of Homer's epics, but this is much too highbrow for the district governor, convinced the pair are spies. By an Albanian writer, author of The Concert.

"A luxury yacht crashes into a Reykjavik pier. But the boat is empty; no one is on board. What has happened to the crew? And what has happened to the family who were very much present when the yacht left Lisbon? What should Thora Gudmundsdottir, the series sleuth, make of the rumors that the vessel was cursed? She is spooked even more when she boards the yacht and thinks she sees one of the missing children. Where is Karitas, the glamorous young wife...

"When a body wrapped in a blue plastic tarp and tied up with twine is discovered near the bushes near a quiet suburban Tokyo neighborhood, Lt. Reiko Himekawa and her squad take the case. The victim was slaughtered brutally---his wounds are bizarre, and no one can figure out the "what" or the "why" of this crime. At age twenty-nine, Reiko Himekawa of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police's Homicide Division is young to have been made lieutenant, particularly...

"When thirty-four-year-old Ms. Shibata gets a new job in Tokyo to escape sexual harassment at her old one, she finds that, as the only woman at her new workplace-a company that manufactures cardboard tubes-she is expected to do all the menial tasks. One day she announces that she can't clear away her colleagues' dirty cups-because she's pregnant and the smell nauseates her. The only thing is . . . Ms. Shibata is not pregnant. Pregnant Ms. Shibata...

A young man is sent to prison when he accidentally kills a man in a barroom brawl. While behind bars he takes up singing and is helped in the record business by a beautiful young woman.