[Yokoyama's] novellas wring soulful suspense out of cop office politics . . . Yokoyama's characters are not lost but adrift, swept up in inner longing, dissatisfied with or even broken by many of the aspects of their lives . . . For Yokoyama the [police] department is first and foremost a political landscape . . . Fascinating.
–David Ulin, Los Angeles Times
A regional Japanese police precinct in 1998 is the setting of
Prefecture D, a quartet of novellas by Hideo Yokoyama. These four tales explore the satisfactions, frustrations, and base and noble emotions of those who devote their lives to a profession where saving face is a priority and ethical conundrums are a frequent challenge. Yokoyama, a journalist-turned-author whose novel
Six Four was published in American in 2017 to much acclaim, immerses us in an environment at once familiar and exotic; his stories' mysteries are solved in a manner that surprises the mind and moves the heart.
–Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal [Yokoyama is] the dean of Japanese noir . . . Fans of hard-boiled fiction will enjoy seeing how Japanese cop shops work.
–Kirkus Reviews [starred review] [Yokoyama] somehow manages to pack each approximately 80-page story with the same amount of intensity as his epic-scale fiction.
–Booklist Compelling . . . Both [
Prefecture D and
Six Four] easily stand alone, but to read both offers enhancing insights. . . Each novella presents a mystery that exposes the labyrinthine relationships within
Prefecture D's sprawling police department . . . Yokoyama's dozen years' experience as an investigative journalist undoubtedly enhances his already sharp fiction with unexpected minutiae that proves essential.
–
Shelf Awareness