"Excellent investigative tale"

Reporter Billy Chaka is in Osaka to accept an award from the Kinki Foundation for a story he wrote on Tetsuo Oyamada, who became a master puppeteer in the Bunraku Theater at fourteen years old. A bit surprised since the article was written almost a decade ago, Billy rationalizes why he should attend. He figures a free trip across the ocean is worth his time, but more important his magazine Youth in Asia could use the publicity though he admits he would rather stay home.

As the gala draws to a close, Tetsuo's father asks Billy to learn why Bunraku fired his son. Mumbling he will consider it, Billy talks with American Richard Gale as they ride the elevator in their hotel together. The next day, Bill learns that someone killed Gale. Unable to resist a homicide investigation and deciding to follow up on Mr. Oyamada's request, Billy begins making inquiries starting with visits to the puppet theaters where he begins to detect a connection between the play and the homicide not realizing that he alienates the local crime lords.

The fourth Chaka investigative tale is a fine story filled with amusing asides by the hero and a solid murder mystery. The story line is fun to follow as Billy gets into one mess after another especially when females are involved. Though somewhat identical in plot line to the previous Chaka novels, fans will enjoy Billy's westernizing antics in Osaka's historical puppet theater.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted September 13, 2004

Summary

Wisecracking reporter and reluctant detective Billy Chaka is back. His latest misadventure finds him in Osaka to accept an award for an article he'd written years before about a teenage Bunraku puppet prodigy named Tetsuo. Billy quickly learns he may have been summoned for more than the award -- Tetsuo has been expelled from Osaka's most prestigious theater company following a bloody, unexplained incident involving a fellow puppeteer. While Billy tries to unravel that mystery, an American man in the hotel room next door is found brutally murdered. Investigating the homicide and its bizarre link to the young puppeteer plunges Billy into a shadowy world where dreams and reality violently intermingle and people are never who they seem. It's a world not far removed from that of the Bunraku theater that flourished in Osaka hundreds of years ago, stylishly recast for the neon-lit urban stage with decrepit gangsters, clueless expatriates, dangerous women, and one seriously deranged hotel employee. Two parts noir and one part playful irreverence, Kinki Lullaby is a sly whodunit that unfolds with the twisted charm of a fever dream.