Book Review: Shitamachi Scam

Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski

When Tokyo scammers target the elderly, it is up to Detective Hiroshi and his team to unmask them before the city’s most vulnerable people lose everything…including their lives.

A foundational tenet of Japanese society—care and respect of the elderly—turns upside down when a complex ring of scammers targets a traditional neighborhood and its senior citizens with fatal results in Shitamachi Scam, Michael Pronko’s latest gritty Detective Hiroshi Shimizu novel. 

Focusing on the real phenomenon of sagi (or “fraud”) scams on the rise in Japan, Pronko returns accountant detective Hiroshi and his eclectic team of investigators to the narrow lanes of shitamachi (“lower town”) Tokyo to unravel a devilishly complex scam scheme, where real estate has become the richest commodity and tradition just a stumbling block to “beautification” and progress. This is where thieving sagi rings zero in on the most vulnerable—elderly women who are often widowed or retired. 

When Ueno, their informant at the Silver Center (a local community center for senior citizens), volunteers to lure her scammer into a sting set up by Detective Ishii, head of the newly formed women’s crime task force, Hiroshi and team stake themselves in the old part of Tokyo, “where the lanes had been formed as footpaths hundreds of years before cars.”

But out of nowhere, a scooter zooms through the street and crashes into Ueno, killing her, whilst her scammer, a savvy and organized Takuya, barely flees the scene and police officers with a bag full of blank paper, wondering what went wrong and why. The man on the scooter was not part of his four-man team, who “were as smooth and stable as a four-cylinder motorcycle engine.” 

Then a young, reclusive tenant is found dead in his room the next day at the Silver Center, with a series of camera feeds monitoring the Center and other basements in the neighborhood found among his belongings. Are the two deaths connected? Hiroshi and his crack colleagues begin to peel back the layers of this mystery as break-ins and violence increase at the Silver Center. Pronko aces the granular gumshoe work necessary as the sagi scam becomes the lesser of two evils—ruthless land developers may have a larger scam of their own, one that isn’t afraid of murder to achieve its aims. 

Pronko’s meaty thriller takes time building up the backstory and confidently shifts between the tireless footwork of Hiroshi and team and Takuya’s quest to confront the swindle threatening to swallow up his own. Towering above the human drama is the vibrant, chaotic character of Tokyo itself. 

Pronko’s intimate knowledge of the city’s culture, food, architecture, and exquisite scenery is a treat. Even Hiroshi is awed by the sprawl of Tokyo, one that can only go vertical in lieu of available land: “Tokyo’s buildings provoked his inner fear of heights, even when he was on the ground.”

The plot is intelligent and well-researched, reflecting as it does a current crime plague upon the elderly. For a crime disguising itself in white-collar clothing, Pronko dutifully approaches the narrative in a more cerebral manner, which makes the action sequences even more propulsive. Shitamachi Scam is straightforward police procedural, where connecting the dots is laborious but essential, because—in the words of old school and chain-smoking Detective Takamatsu— “In Tokyo, everything connects.” The dialogue is sharp and sometimes brusque, evoking a dynamic culture’s speaking style, one which Hiroshi must reacclimate himself to after years spent in America:

“…Takamatsu was right. He would never quite fit if he couldn’t stand the pauses essential to Japanese conversation. Waiting out the silences was the key to getting the correct information and understanding the subtext. The subtext was usually the main point.”

As Hiroshi and his colleagues—and Takuya and his—converge on the primary scammer(s) behind the deaths and mayhem, the climax is a cinematic set piece that rewards the readers’ patience in spades. Pronko also teases out a potential change in Hiroshi’s personal and business life, as well, that should keep readers eagerly awaiting the next novel in the series. 

Shitamachi Scam is first-rate detective fiction that delivers a superb and timely plot with old school sleuthing and witty, compelling characters. Readers will want to see more of Hiroshi after this one.

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