Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

This is the first Murakami novel I'd read and also one of his earliest. It's nearly fifteen years since I initially encountered the book. While I vaguely remembered the outline of the plot I'd forgotten all the details. It is in the details that the author excels.

It's Chandler meets Kafka or maybe Borges. Hard boiled insanity or pulp magic realism. t can be both hilariously funny and deeply moving, often in the same paragraph. The cast of charterers are weird to the extreme and almost all nameless.

While probably not his best it is certainly his tightest and funniest and I'm really glad I still have it on my shelf.