Award-winning mystery author Michael Pronko releases Tokyo Juku, the 7th audiobook in the Detective Hiroshi series, performed by audiobooks industry icon Peter Berkrot
Hello again, dear audiobooks friends. Today’s spotlight article is dedicated to Tokyo Juku, the highly anticipated seventh audiobook in the award-winning Detective Hiroshi Series of mysteries set in the exotic metropolis of Tokyo, Japan.
If you’re not familiar yet with these novels, you should get acquainted with them as soon as possible because I can assure you that each is exquisitely written by the esteemed professor and multiple award-winning author, Michael Pronko. As you should remember if you follow my articles here, I am a huge fan of Michael’s and I am always eagerly awaiting new installments in this captivating series. Tokyo Juku arrives a little over one year after Shitamachi Scam, the previous excellent installment starring Detective Hiroshi.
I’m really glad to see once again multiple award-winning narrator and actor Peter Berkrot stepping back into Detective Hiroshi’s shoes for this adventure, and I can’t wait to see how he will entertain and delight us with this latest adventure.
The audio production is a little under 10 hours in duration, which is quite common for books in this series. Now, let’s take a look at the Publisher’s Summary and find out more about the story of Tokyo Juku. After that, I will re-introduce you to the author and the narrator, because both of them are amazing artists and have been awarded a lot of prizes, including the Excellence in Entertainment Award by me.
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. She failed the year before but feels sure she’ll get it the second time—if she can stay awake. The Japanese saying, “Four pass, five fail,” presses her to sleep just four hours a day, and study the rest.
When she wakes up in the middle of the night, her head pillowed on her notes, she takes a break down the silent hallway. A light comes from an empty classroom, and still sleepy, she pushes open the door to discover something not covered in her textbooks. Her juku teacher, the one who got her going again, lies stabbed to death below the whiteboard, with the knife still in his chest and the AV table soaked in blood.
Detective Hiroshi Shimizu is called in, and though he’s usually the forensic accountant, not the lead detective, he’s put in charge of the case. With the help of colleagues old and new, he’s determined to find the killer before the media convicts the girl in the press, the new head of homicide pins it on her, or big money interests make her the scapegoat.
Hiroshi follows up on uncooperative witnesses, financial deceptions, and the sordid details of some teachers’ private lives. Even as he gets closer, the accumulating evidence feels meager amid the vastness of the education industry, and the pressures and profits of Japan’s incessant exams.
At the outset of the investigation, Hiroshi listens as an education ministry official lectures him on how education holds the nation together, but he soon discovers how it also pulls it apart, and how deadly a little learning can be.
Michael Pronko is a Tokyo-based award-winning writer of murder, memoir, and music. His writing about Tokyo life and his character-driven mysteries have won awards and five-star reviews. Kirkus Reviews selected his second novel, The Moving Blade, for their Best Books of 2018. The Last Train won the Shelf Unbound Competition for Best Independently Published Book. Michael also runs the website, Jazz in Japan, which covers the vibrant jazz scene in Tokyo and Yokohama.
During his over 25 years in Japan, he has written about Japanese culture, art, society, and politics for Newsweek Japan, The Japan Times, and Artscape Japan. He has read his essays on NHK TV and done programs for Nippon Television based on his writings. A philosophy major, Michael traveled for years, ducking in and out of graduate schools, before finishing his PhD on Charles Dickens and film.
He finally settled in Tokyo as a professor of American Literature at Meiji Gakuin University. His seminars focus on contemporary novels, short stories, and film adaptations.
“All of my books are set in Tokyo, a city I’ve become addicted to for its size, sweep, and speed. It’s an amazing place to experience on a daily basis, to try to get hold of. I’m still overwhelmed by it at times, maybe most of the time, but writing about Tokyo in both fiction and non-fiction is one way to understand the place, and to understand myself, too,” Michael said. “I’ve come to feel that our lives are constructed by stories. We all have problems, conflicts, and confusions, but also moments when the sheer beauty of the world shines through. Thinking of those ups and downs, I feel stories are essential to live more freely and more creatively. They restore our humanity. Stories are also great fun! I feel privileged to keep working with stories and to be able to share those stories with others.”
More about Michael’s life and writings in Tokyo at: www.michaelpronko.com
A veteran of stage and screen, Peter Berkrot‘s career spans four decades. Highlights include feature roles in Caddyshack and Show-time’s Brotherhood, and appearances on America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries. He is a prominent acting coach and a regular VO contributor to the award-winning news program Frontline produced by WGBH in Boston. Peter served as director of narration for the Emmy-nominated The Truth About Cancer. Peter is a recipient of a 2025 Audie Award along with a full cast for the Audio Drama THE REAL EDUCATION OF TJ CROWLEY as well as a 2012 Audie Award nomination for BUDDAH STANDARD TIME.
He has voiced nearly 700 audiobooks and more than 300 for children, winning countless Earphones Awards and two SOVAS awards in 2018 and 2019. His 2016 Audie Award was as part of a multi cast performance for THE STARLING PROJECT and was honored along with a brilliant cast of actors for THE VAULT OF HORROR, directed by William Dufris with an Independent Audiobook Award for AUDIO DRAMA.
Stay tuned for my review of Tokyo Juku in the upcoming weeks, but until then, take care, stay safe, and don’t forget, always listen with your heart!
Victor Dima
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