A shocking report on the disappearance of a twenty-one-years old British woman, Lucie Blackman, who went missing in Japan in the early 2000s This case got a lot of recognition from the public as it was extremely complicated and had many layers to it. The author of Ghosts of the Tsunami, Richard Lloyd Parry, unsolves one mystery at a time.
We learn about Lucie’s life before she was talked into going to Japan to work as a hostess in a bar in Roppongi, the course of the investigation and its dead-ends. We follow Lucie’s heartbroken family that flies to Japan where they reluctantly keep the media outlets engaged so the detectives feel the pressure to continue the investigation going on for six or seven years. And then there is a trial. We finally get to know the murderer’s identity, along with his background and past.
When we read books such as People Who Eat Darkness, it’s hard to believe that scenarios resembling detective stories happen in real life. On the other hand – besides the highly metaphorical title suggesting the dark and macabre side of the book – we recognize that tragic events may be a cumulation of simple, yet terrible coincidences, bad luck and malicious intentions. And we find these everywhere, not only in Japan.
