Michael Pronko

In Tokyo, murder’s easy to hide. Detective Hiroshi Shimizu investigates white-collar crime in Tokyo. When an American businessman turns up dead, his mentor Takamatsu calls him out to the site of a grisly murder. A glimpse from a security camera video suggests the killer might be a woman...

When the top American diplomat in Tokyo, Bernard Mattson, is killed, he leaves more than a lifetime of successful Japan-American negotiations. He leaves a missing manuscript, boxes of research, a lost keynote speech and a tangled web of relations....

Running from a life she didn’t choose, in a city she doesn’t know, Sukanya, a young Thai girl, loses herself in the vastness of Tokyo. With her Bangkok street smarts and some stolen money, she stays ahead of her former captors who will do anything to recover the computer she took. After...

Whether contemplating Tokyo’s odd-shaped bonsai houses, pachinko parlors, chopstick ballet, or the perilous habit of running for trains, the short, personal writings in Beauty and Chaos explore Tokyo from the inside to reveal the city’s deeper meanings and daily pleasures....

In Japan's high-pressure exam world, truth is the hardest test of all Eighteen-year-old Mana pulls an all-nighter at her juku, a private Japanese cram school that specializes in helping students pass the once-a-year exams.

After the suspicious deaths of a seventy-something woman and a student recluse, Detective Hiroshi tracks down a gang of scammers who target retirees, robbing them of their pensions, life savings, and even the deeds to their homes. Hiroshi teams up with Detective Ishii, who’s been running a...

Money isn’t the only thing. It’s the deadly thing. After the murder of a high-flying executive in one of Tokyo’s wealth management firms, Detective Hiroshi finds himself investigating the financial schemes that secure the money of Tokyo’s elite investors. His forensic accounting gets...

Award-winning novelist Michael Pronko examines Tokyo as a place, a culture, and a series of intense experiences. Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens digs into the enigmatic sides of Tokyo, with humor, delicacy, and enchantment. A transplanted American from the Midwest, Pronko’s observations and...

In Tokyo, your job can kill. After a top-tier manager in Japan’s premier media company ends up dead in front of company headquarters, Detective Hiroshi enters the high-pressure, hard-driving world of Tokyo’s large corporations. Hiroshi quickly finds out the manager fell from the roof at the...

Based on Pronko's 18 years living, teaching, and writing in Tokyo, these essays on how Tokyoites work, dress, commute, eat, and sleep....

In Tokyo Tempos, award-winning mystery writer Michael Pronko explores the mystery of everyday Tokyo life. Drawing on three decades of living, writing, and teaching in Japan, he delves into Tokyo’s dynamism to show what it’s like living with Japanese food, seasons, ceremonies, and special...