Writing in the Daily Telegraph print edition on Saturday, January 27th, reviewer Jake Kerridge gives four stars to the book, writing:
“Ultimately, while Adelstein makes the appropriate tut-tutting noises when he describes the harm that the syndicates have caused, one still comes away from The Last Yakuza finding its subject not just sympathetic, but even lovable.”
The Last Yakuza: Life and Death in the Japanese Underworld by Jake Adelstein is published in the English language by Scribe in North America, Australia and New Zealand, and in the UK by Corsair. It is also available in French, Polish, Chinese, and Russian editions.
Jake Adelstein has been an investigative journalist in Japan since 1993, writing in both Japanese and English. From 2006 to 2007 he was the chief investigator for a US State Department-sponsored study of human trafficking in Japan. He has been writing for The Daily Beast, The Japan Times, and other publications since 2011 and was a special correspondent for The Los Angeles Times. Considered one of the foremost experts on organized crime in Japan, he works as a writer and consultant in Japan and the United States. He co-hosted and co-wrote the award-winning podcast about missing people in Japan, The Evaporated: Gone With The Gods in 2023. He is the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan (Vintage) which is a series on (HBO) Max and also The Last Yakuza: Life and Death In The Japanese Underworld (Scribe, 2023). His next book is Tokyo Noir: in and out of Japan’s underworld (Scribe, June 2024). He has appeared on CNN, NPR, the BBC, France 24 and other media outlets as a commentator on social issues in Japan, the criminal justice system, politics and the nuclear industry giant, TEPC0. He is also a low-ranking Zen Buddhist priest far far from enlightenment.