The Kingdom is Fuminori Nakamura's 10th novel and a "sister novel" to his acclaimed English-language debut, The Thief. Newcomers shouldn't feel intimidated, however, as The Kingdom is also a perfect entrée into Nakamura's almost indescribably weird brand of crime fiction--sometimes given the catchy moniker "zen noir" for its contemplative, unemotional bent. Nakamura's novel follows Yurika, a freelancer for an obscure criminal agency who poses as a prostitute in order to sedate and take embarrassing pictures of important men. Yurika finds her lucrative routine interrupted when a sadistic underworld figure named Kizaki starts involving her in cruel, anarchic schemes with far-reaching goals.
As always, Nakamura packs a lot of plot into a slim novel, but his pared-down prose style leaves room for the meditative asides that characterize his work. Yurika, like most of Nakamura's protagonists, is a true outsider--so utterly detached that her observations feel both profound and bafflingly alien. Early in the novel Yurika visits a smoke-filled bar and muses:
"I'm not sure why, but I thought it would be nice if this was what the world was like after death. The dead all get drunk somewhere, surrounded by a white haze. They sing songs and never notice that they are gradually disappearing. But then where would the children go? Children can't get drunk, so they'd have to remain conscious of themselves as they disappear."
The Kingdom is a gripping crime novel wrapped around an ongoing existential crisis. No one writes like Nakamura, and everyone should read him. --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books