The Thief

Amazon Best Books of the Month, March 2012 : In Fuminori Nakamura's new novel, the main character weaves along the streets of Tokyo pickpocketing his way through the flow of humanity, as if in a dream. He lifts wallets filled with cash and credit cards with a masterful ease, his mind occupied with a trance-like debate about whether to care anymore. Whether to care about the young kid he sees clumsily stealing food at a supermarket. Whether to care about his partner, who disappeared after a botched robbery years ago. Oscillating between the real connection he establishes with the shoplifting boy and the drug-like daze of his own criminal past, the thief drifts back into the clutches of the mastermind of that ill-fated robbery. And the thief starts to wake up, only to realize that a noose is being carefully, and slowly, drawn around his neck. --Benjamin Moebius Axa0Los Angeles Times Book Prize 2013 FINALIST A Wall Street Journal BEST FICTON OF 2012 SELECTION A Wall Street Journal BEST MYSTERY OF 2012 A World Literature Today NOTABLE TRANSLATION A Los Angeles Times BOOK PRIZE NOMINEE *A World Literature Today Notable Translation of the Year *An Amazon Best Mystery/Thriller of the Month *Winner of Japan’s Prestigious Oe Prize " The Thief brings to mind Highsmith, Mishima and Doestoevsky ... A chillingxa0philosophical thriller leaving readers in doubt without making them feel in any way cheated." xa0— The Wall Street Journal , BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR selection “Nakamura's prose is cut-to-the-bone lean, but it moves across the page with a seductive, even voluptuous agility. I defy you not to finish the book in a single sitting.” — Richmond Times Dispatch "His grasp of the seamy underbelly of the city is why Nakamura is one of the most award-winning young guns of Japanese hardboiled detective writing." — Daily Beast “Fascinating. I want to write something like The Thief someday myself."— Natsuo Kirino , bestselling author of Edgar-nominated Out and Grotesque "It's simple and utterly compelling - great beach reading for the deeply cynical. If you crossed Michael Connelly and Camus and translated it from Japanese." — Grantland "Surreal." — Sacramento Bee “Page-Turner” pick“Disguised as fast-paced, shock-fueled crime fiction, Thief resonates even more as a treatise on contemporary disconnect and paralyzing isolation.”— Library Journal “I was deeply impressed with The Thief . It is fresh.”— Kenzaburo Oe , Nobel Prize–winning author of A Personal Matter “Nakamura’s memorable antihero, at once as believably efficient as Donald Westlake’s Parker and as disaffected as a Camus protagonist, will impress genre and literary readers alike."— Publishers Weekly “Fast-paced, elegantly written, and rife with the symbols of inevitability.”— ForeWord “Compulsively readable for its portrait of a dark, crumbling, graffiti-scarred Tokyo—and the desire to understand the mysterious thief.”— Booklist “The drily philosophical tone and the noir atmosphere combine perfectly, providing a rapid and enjoyable "read" that is nonetheless cool and distant, provoking the reader to think about (as much as experience) the tale.” — International Noir Fiction " The Thief manages to wrap you up in its pages, tightly, before you are quite aware of it."— Mystery Scene “Nakamura succeeds in creating a complicated crime novel in which the focus is not on the crimes themselves but rather on the psychology and physicality of the criminal. The book’s power inheres in the voice of the thief, which is itself as meticulously rendered as the thief’s every action.”— Three Percent "Unique and engrossing." — Mystery People "Readers will be enthralled by this story that offers an extremely surprising ending."— Suspense Magazine “Along the way the reader catches glimpses of Japan and its lifestyle, which is far from a pretty picture” — Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine “More than a crime novel, The Thief is a narrative that delves deep into the meaning of theft and the nature of justice....Japanese crime fiction has a new star."— Out of the Gutter “So many issues are raised in this novel. It is wonderfully brief, and spare, much like something Hemingway would write."— Dolce Bellezza Blog Fuminori Nakamura was born in 1977 and graduated from Fukushima University in 2000. In 2002, he won the prestigious Noma Literary Prize for New Writers for his first novel, A Gun , and in 2005 he won the Akutagawa prize for The Boy in the Earth . The Thief , winner of the 2010 Oe Prize, Japan’s most important literary award, is his first novel to be published in English. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1When I was a kid, I often messed this up.In crowded shops, in other people’s houses,things I’d pick up furtively would slip from my fingers.Strangers’ possessions were like foreign objects thatdidn’t fit comfortably in my hands. They would tremblefaintly, asserting their independence, and before I knewit they’d come alive and fall to the ground. The point ofcontact, which was intrinsically morally wrong, seemedto be rejecting me. And in the distance there was alwaysthe tower. Just a silhouette floating in the mist like someancient daydream. But I don’t make mistakes like thatthese days. And naturally I don’t see the tower either.In front of me a man in his early sixties was walkingtowards the platform, in a black coat with a silver suitcasein his right hand. Of all the passengers here, I was surehe was the richest. His coat was Brunello Cucinelli, andso was his suit. His Berluti shoes, probably made to order,did not show even the slightest scuffmarks. His wealthwas obvious to everyone around him. The silver watchpeeping out from the cuff on his left wrist was a RolexDatejust. Since he wasn’t used to taking the bullet trainby himself, he was having some trouble buying a ticket.He stooped forward, his thick fingers hovering over thevending machine uncertainly like revolting caterpillars. Atthat moment I saw his wallet in the left front pocket of hisjacket.Keeping my distance, I got on the escalator, got off at aleisurely pace. With a newspaper in my hand, I stood behindhim as he waited for the train. My heart was beating a littlefast. I knew the position of all the security cameras on thisplatform. Since I only had a platform ticket, I had to finishthe job before he boarded the train. Blocking the view ofthe people to my right with my back, I folded the paperas I switched it to my left hand. Then I lowered it slowlyto create a shield and slipped my right index and middlefingers into his coat pocket. The fluorescent light glintedfaintly off the button on his cuff, sliding at the edge of myvision. I breathed in gently and held it, pinched the cornerof the wallet and pulled it out. A quiver ran from my fingertipsto my shoulder and a warm sensation gradually spreadthroughout my body. I felt like I was standing in a void, asthough with the countless intersecting lines of vision ofall those people, not one was directed at me. Maintainingthe fragile contact between my fingers and the wallet, Isandwiched it in the folded newspaper. Then I transferredthe paper to my right hand and put it in the inside pocketof my own coat. Little by little I breathed out, conscious ofmy temperature rising even more. I checked my surroundings,only my eyes moving. My fingers still held the tensionof touching a forbidden object, the numbness of enteringsomeone’s personal space. A trickle of sweat ran down myback. I took out my cell phone and pretended to check myemail as I walked away.I went back to the ticket gate and down the gray stairstowards the Marunouchi line. Suddenly one of my eyesblurred, and all the people moving around me seemed toshimmer, their silhouettes distorted. When I reached theplatform I spotted a man in a black suit out of the cornerof my eye. I located his wallet by the slight bulge in theright back pocket of his trousers. From his appearanceand demeanor I judged him to be a successful male companionat a ladies-only club. He was looking quizzically athis phone, his slender fingers moving busily over the keys.I got on the train with him, reading the flow of the crowd,and positioned myself behind him in the muggy carriage.When humans’ nerves detect big and small stimuli atthe same time, they ignore the smaller one. On this sectionof track there are two large curves where the trainshakes violently. The office worker behind me was readingan evening paper, folded up small, and the two middleagedwomen on my right were gossiping about someoneand laughing raucously. The only one who wasn’t simplytraveling was me. I turned the back of my hand towardsthe man and took hold of his wallet with two fingers. Theother passengers formed a wall around me on two sides.Two threads at the corner of his pocket were frayed andtwisted, forming elegant spirals like snakes. As the trainswayed I pushed my chest close to him as though leaningagainst his back and then pulled the wallet out vertically.The tight pressure inside me leaked into the air, Ibreathed out and a reassuring warmth flowed through mybody. Without moving I checked the atmosphere in thecarriage, but nothing seemed out of order. There was noway I would make a mistake in a simple job like this. Atthe next station I got off and walked away, hunching myshoulders like someone feeling the cold.I joined the stream of weary people and went throughthe barrier. Looking at the fifteen or so average men andwomen gathered at the entrance to the station, I figuredthere was about two hundred thousand yen among them.I strolled off, lighting a cigarette. Behind a power pole tomy left I saw a man check the contents of his wallet infull view and put it in the right pocket of his white downjacket. His cuffs were dark with stains, his sneakers wornand only the fabric of his jeans was good quality. I ignoredhim and went into Mitsukoshi Department Store. On themenswear floor, which was full of brand-name shops, therewas a display mannequin wearing a coordinated outfit,something reasonably well-off guys in their late twentiesor early thirties would wear. The mannequin and I weredressed the same. I had no interest in clothes, but peoplein my line of work can’t afford to stand out. You have tolook prosperous so that no one suspects you. You have towear a lie, you have to blend into your environment as alie. The only difference between me and the store dummywas the shoes. Keeping in mind that I might have to runaway, I was in sneakers.I took advantage of the warmth inside the shop toloosen my fingers, opening and closing my hands insidemy pockets. The wet handkerchief I used to moisten myfingers was still cold. My forefinger and middle finger werealmost the same length. Whether I was born like that orthey gradually grew that way I don’t know. People whosering fingers are longer than their index fingers use theirmiddle and ring fingers. Some people grip with three fingers,with the middle finger at the back. Like all forms ofmotion, there is a smooth, ideal movement for removing awallet from a pocket. It’s not only a matter of the angle, butof speed as well. Ishiwaka loved talking about this stuff.Often when he drank he became unguarded and chattylike a child. I didn’t know what he was up to anymore. Ifigured he was probably already dead.I entered a stall in the department store’s dimly littoilet, pulled on a thin pair of gloves and inspected thewallets. I’d made it a rule never to use the station toilets,just to be on the safe side. The Brunello Cucinelli man’sheld 96,000 yen, three American $100 bills, a Visa goldcard, an American Express gold card, a driver’s license, agym membership card and a receipt for 72,000 yen froma fancy Japanese restaurant. Just when I was about to giveup I found an intricately colored plastic card with nothingprinted on it. I’d come across these before. They’re forexclusive private brothels. In the male companion’s walletwere 52,000 yen, a driver’s license, a Mitsui Sumitomocredit card, cards for Tsutaya video store and a comicbook café, several business cards from sex workers and awhole lot of scrap paper, receipts and the like. There werealso some colorful pills with hearts and stars stamped onthem. I only took the banknotes, leaving the rest inside. Awallet shows a person’s personality and lifestyle. Just likea cell phone, it is at the center, forming the nucleus ofthe owner’s secrets, everything he carries on him. I neversold the cards because it was too much bother. I did whatIshikawa would have done—if I dropped the wallets in amailbox, the post office would forward them to the police,who would then return them to the address on the driver’slicense. I wiped off my fingerprints and put the wallets inmy pocket. The male escort might get busted for drugs,but that wasn’t my problem.Just as I was leaving the stall I felt something strangein one of the hidden pockets inside my coat. Alarmed, Iwent back into the toilet. A Bulgari wallet, made of stiffleather. Inside was 200,000 yen in new bills. Also severalgold cards, Visa and others, and the business cards of thepresident of a securities firm. I’d never seen the wallet orthe name on the cards before.Not again, I thought. I had no recollection of taking it.But of all the wallets I’d acquired that day it was definitelythe most valuable.2 Feeling a slight headache, I gave myself upto the rocking of the train. It was bound forHaneda Airport, but it was terribly crowded. Between theheating and the warmth of other people’s bodies, I wassweating. I stared out the window, moving my fingers inmy pockets. Clusters of dingy houses passed at regularintervals, like some kind of code. Suddenly I rememberedthe last wallet I took yesterday. I blinked and an enormousiron tower flashed by me with a loud roar. It was over in aninstant but my body stiffened. The tower was tall and I feltlike it had glanced casually at me standing tensely in themiddle of that crowded train... Read more