Seventeen

Hideo Yokoyama (Author)Born in 1957, Hideo Yokoyama worked for twelve years as an investigative reporter with a regional newspaper north of Tokyo, before becoming one of Japan's most acclaimed fiction writers. Seventeen is his second novel to be translated into the English language. His first, Six Four, was a Sunday Times bestseller in hardback and paperback, became the first Japanese novel to be shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger, was named in the Crime and Thrillers of 2016 roundups in each of the Guardian, Telegraph, Financial Times and Glasgow Herald, and has since been translated into thirteen languages worldwide.Louise Heal Kawai (Translator)Louise Heal Kawai is from Manchester in the UK, and holds an MA in Advanced Japanese Studies from the University of Sheffield. She has lived in Japan for over twenty years, and been a literary translator for the past ten. Her recent translations include Seicho Matsumoto's murder mystery, A Quiet Place, and Mieko Kawakami's Ms Ice Sandwich.

Seventeen is a brilliant novel on any level - but as a thriller it's a gripping page turner, while remaining moving and complex. It's a deeply satisfying read and it will be a while before I read anything as good.