The Night of Baba Yaga

Tokyo 1979, the land of yakuza, martial arts, and unforgiving economic circumstances, is the background of this wildly uneven book. Young Yoriko Shindo is kidnapped off the streets one day when she is working one of her many gigs as she struggles to stay afloat in the heady days of the Japanese economy and is taken to the home of the Naiki-kai yakuza. She is told she will escort Shoko and make sure no harm comes to her or face her demise. Over time, the two will form a bond. Shindo will recognize that everyone lives in a cage and struggles to yearn to be free.

There are plenty of well-described action scenes, especially as Shindo struggles to assert herself in a male-dominant field while at the same time trying to understand her new charge and what is actually happening. Where the book falls flat are the sections where we experience the life of Shoko’s mother, who supposedly ran off with a yakuza member and has been hiding ever since. These sections are a distraction and throw off the pacing of the book.