A story that combines unicorns, scientists and the tone of a detective novel must be something special. Murikami is a master storyteller who isnt easy to categorise. Hard-boiled is set in a sort of alternate version of contemporary Tokyo, where one man faces surrealistic problems and situations. But is this the story of one man or two? 

Lately I seem to pick books that are more difficult to review, because I'd like to entice you to read them without giving away much of the plot twists. And this book does not have a straight story line to follow as you would do for a book report. So here's what I'll do. I'll just write down some of my observations and hope you are intrigued enough to read the novel for yourself.

So we have this guy who seems to do some sort of job with his brain, storing information that needs to be encrypted and then un-encrypted again at another place. Presumable this is dne because data transfer isnt safe, since computers can be hacked into, but the brain can't. That does sound science fiction and it is.

This guy has encrypted data in his head and he seems to be hunted by another party, eager to get that information out of him. Because the reader has as little a clue as the guy, the story unfolds like a detective story, with little bits of information coming up unexpectedly. But it's very hard to grasp all the little things flaoting about, because they seem to make little sense when taken on their own.

There are also travels under the city of Tokyo, where dark sinister creature are said to be lurking about. Like a modern version of a labyrinth, the guy is lead through it by a young girl, in search of an old and presumably wise man.

Then there is a guy in a walled in town. He lost his shadow when he entered the strange town and weird things are happening to him all the time. He knows the things are weird, but as in a dream he can't seem to focus on the why and how of it all. This guy spends a lot of time in a library with skulls. The librarian seems very nice and you get a vague sense of a possible romance in the air. But of course there are obstcales.

The blurb on the back of the book states that this novel is quite Kafka-esque. Personally I never had a fondness of Kafka, thinking he took absurdity eithe too far or not far enough. Murikami weaves and plots and manages to make you laugh. This story is not straightforward and it may take some getting used to if all you've read are paperbacks based on TV shows or the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. But it is worth it. While you're at it, you get treated to more than just a strange tale, because it is written in beautiful language. Murikamu may have written this originally in Japanese, he did assist in the translation into English.

I think 4 out of 5, because I know I'll have to save that 5 out of 5 for another book by the same author!