| Saya is a classically beautiful Japanese girl of nineteen. | | | | came to men. But when did a teenage girl ever take |
| She has no difficulty attracting men of all ages, and is | | | | advice about men from her mother? Saya is no |
| happy to give them what they want. Sometimes they | | | | different. She jumps at the opportunity, she loves |
| pay, sometimes not, though she doesn't particularly like | | | | cuddling into his warm body and laying her head on his |
| any of them, and as for love, does that really exist? | | | | fat tummy, she will do anything he wants. She even |
| Then she meets Bogey. | | | | buys a cookbook and attempts to cook him the food |
| He's a middle-aged forty-something with a paunch and | | | | he loves, not that he is impressed by that, preferring to |
| greying hair who fancies himself as something of a | | | | eat in the seedy underworld he inhabits. |
| yakuza, a gangster. He makes his living through | | | | So opens Rika Yokomori's novel set in Japan and |
| gambling, wagering on anything late into the night, | | | | New York. |
| mahjong, the horses, bicycle riding, and the super-hot | | | | In places the book comes across almost as a reality |
| boiling over stockmarket where everybody always | | | | TV programme. It is as if the camera is set |
| wins. He adores gangster movies and hanging round | | | | permanently on Saya's shoulder. She is rarely out of |
| with the rough crowd. Saya is bedazzled by Bogey, | | | | shot as we learn of the exciting parts of her life, and |
| he's known as that because of his love of Bogart's | | | | the mundane, almost in equal measure. |
| movies. She's fascinated by his weird selection of | | | | But this is a page turner as we watch Saya slowly |
| friends and is flattered by the attention of an older | | | | growing into a worldly-wise woman. Gradually she |
| man, especially one such as he. Inevitably she | | | | begins to see things as they really are. Everything, as |
| becomes his mistress without a moment's hesitation. | | | | you might expect, is not so rosy in the life of a |
| 'Whatever you do, don't go with a gambler,' was the | | | | wannabe yakuza's moll. There are sure to be rocky |
| one piece of advice her mother gave her when it | | | | times ahead. |
