This is the third book by Kenzo Kitakata that I’ve read, the first two being Ashes and Winter Sleep. Translated by Paul Warham, this book is a fitting addition to Kitakata’s works in English. The hardboiled styling of this book is more in line with 1990s Hong Kong action films rather than Japanese novels, but it makes the book a fast and enjoyable roller coaster ride.

The Cage continues in the style set up in these previous books, with the focus on two main characters, Kazuya Takino and Detective Takagi. Takino, a former Yakuza who’s gone straight, struggles with the life he’s created and the world he thought he’d left behind. By rendering this gangster as a complex human being, Kitakata can deftly explore the various levels, neighborhoods, and relationships of contemporary Japanese society. The cage is a metaphor for the world that Takino has made for himself, and that he is aware of, but the novel also explores the cages that the other main characters have built around themselves, for better or for worse and knowingly or unknowingly.