The Last Train

Detective Hiroshi, Volume 1

By: Michael Pronko

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

In Tokyo, murder’s easy to hide. Detective Hiroshi Shimizu investigates white-collar crime in Tokyo. When an American businessman turns up dead, his mentor Takamatsu calls him out to the site of a grisly murder. A glimpse from a security camera video suggests the killer might be a woman. Hiroshi quickly learns how close homicide and suicide can appear in a city full of high-speed trains just a step - or a push - away.

Takamatsu drags Hiroshi out to the hostess clubs and skyscraper offices of Tokyo in search of the killer. Hiroshi goes deeper and deeper into Tokyo’s intricate, perilous market for buying and selling the most expensive land in the world. He teams up with ex-sumo wrestler Sakaguchi to scour Tokyo’s sacred temples, corporate offices, and industrial wastelands to find out why one woman was driven to murder.

After years in America and lost in neat, clean spreadsheets, Hiroshi confronts the stark realities of the biggest city in the world, where inside information can travel in a flash from the insiders at top investment firms to street-level punks and teenage hostesses, everyone scrambling for their cut of Tokyo’s lucrative land deals. Hiroshi’s determined to cut through Japan’s ambiguities - and dangers - to find the murdering ex-hostess before she extracts her final revenge - which just might be him.

©2017 Michael Pronko (P)2025 Michael Pronko

Fascinating exploration of urban and psychic depths

I love audiobooks, but it can be hard when there are passages you just need to go over again and “flip back” to. So some parts of what happened and why remain murky to me. The economic wheeling-dealing went above my head, but I’m fairly certain that had I had better understanding of white collar crime, I would have followed the revenge crimes better. In spite of some remaining confusion as to how exactly victims were chosen, I was captivated from the beginning by the noir descriptions of Tokyo life in the fast lane (or on the express train). The ending train sequence should be in a film, if it’s not already. I loved the main characters (one of them reluctantly at first and then whole-heartedly). The dark ending fitted the dark story, but I hope to read more featuring this smart, gritty and tender Tokyo cop. I liked the narrator, too, quite a bit. He was absolutely perfect for this story.

What's luv gotta do 'wid' it?

Good story , compelling location (Tokyo), chacters and flow + awesome narration, what's not to luv?

Captivating story, amazing performance

In The Last Train the story follows Detective Hiroshi Shimizu of the Tokyo Police Department as he is pulled from his safe desk job into an investigation about the suspicious deaths of some very wealthy individuals, residents of Japan and even a few foreigners. Working alongside his colleagues, he discovers that the victims are related and realize they might have on their hands a case which won’t be easy to solve.

Filled with drama, murder, police work and even occasional comedy, The Last Train picks up speed from the intense beginning and keeps the listener on the edge of their seat until the heartbreaking conclusion.

Michael Pronko is a Professor of literature at a prestigious Tokyo university and he is living in Japan for more than 20 years now. I found his insights into the Japanese culture very interesting and it is evident how much he loves and respects their customs and beliefs. All of the above are reflected into a well written story of The Last Train, making the experience richer and completely immersive.

The audio version of The Last Train is brought to life by renowned narrator, talented actor and award-winning voiceover artist Peter Berkrot. Drawing from his experience of over 40 years in the entertainment industry, Peter brings all the characters, locations and events to life in a perfect performance.

Just like he did with Tokyo Traffic, the third book in this series, he reads in a calm, soothing voice, infuses the events with just the right level of emotion and switches with ease between voices and accents. It seems that he settles very well into Detective Hiroshi’s shoes and manages to capture and relay all the nuances in The Last Train.

A great book

This is more "whydunit than who whodonit" , but the suspense remains intact. An unusual plot ,great atmosphere (you can tell that the author has been living in Tokyo) and characters well crafted make this book a real pleasure to read. It is the first of the Detective Hiroshi's series ; i can't wait to read the second episode.

an interesting look at a side of Japan I had never even glimpsed at before

hard to figure out at first, but interesting once I did. Always kept me trying to figure out how things fit together and what was next!