Tokyo Time by Dawn Farnham
In 1942, during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore, two seasoned homicide detectives—one a Eurasian, caught between two worlds, and the other, a pacifist Japanese escaping dark and tragic secrets at home—are thrown together to solve a high-profile murder and come to terms with each other under the yoke of a brutal and corrupt military regime.
Eurasian homicide detective, Martin Bach, has survived the war and the surrender: now all he has to do is survive the occupation. The Brits are locked up and his new boss at the CID is the ex-police chief of Nagasaki, enigmatic Kano Hayashi, installed by the new regime. Despite being complete strangers, the two men team up to solve the vicious murder of the young trophy wife of a wealthy old friend of the Marquis Fujimoto, Civilian Governor of Malaya—and the Emperor of Japan’s brother-in-law. The case naturally captivates the public. So, the Japanese military administration, desperate to win the hearts and minds of the local population, demands that justice at least be seen to be done…and quickly.
To find the elusive killer, Bach and Hayashi must confront their own dark secrets, grapple with the brutal iniquities and indignities of occupation, and learn to work together while struggling to maintain their own rigorous moral codes in a world where morality is trumped by survival…and where their own lives are very much at stake.
Books by Dawn Farnham
Tokyo Time
In 1942, during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore, two seasoned homicide detectives—one a Eurasian, caught between two worlds, and the other, a pacifist Japanese escaping dark and tragic secrets at home—are thrown together to solve a high-profile murder and come to terms with each other under the yoke of a brutal and corrupt military regime.
Reviews For Tokyo Time
Japan’s fraught and ugly wartime occupation of Singapore comes alive through the discovery of a dead Eurasian woman’s body and resulting murder investigation in this gritty police procedural. International history buffs will especially enjoy the unraveling of this intricate multicultural mystery.
A superb series debut. Farnham excels at recreating the tensions of life under occupation, where the slightest affront to Japanese troops could result in swift execution, and smartly integrates that texture into a stirring mystery. Fans of Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series will be eager for the sequel.
A thoroughly satisfying murder mystery & a fascinating portrait of a multi-racial, multi-cultural society which finds it has exchanged one set of imperial overlords for another.
Farnham’s first foray into historical crime fiction is a complex police procedural set in Japanese-occupied Singapore during the Second World War. The setting makes for a fascinating police drama as the detectives from two different worlds navigate the many cultures and communities of Singapore.
She crafts a twisting labyrinth of clues, suspects, and deception. The reader is thrown into an unfamiliar time and place of turmoil and fear. This is the beginning of a new series that blends police procedural, historical intrigue, and Asian philosophy. There’s more to Tokyo Time than noodles and Hamlet.
