Tokyo Underworld : The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan

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Summary: A side of Japan few ever see
Review: This is one of the most entertaining books I have ever read about Japan. And one of the most informative too. What really sets this book apart from most others on the topic is the detailed account of an American living through the post-war period and the excesses and hubris of the boom and eventual bust. I can almost imagine myself in Nick's shoes as he fights his way to the top of the pile only to slip under the weight of his greed. At the same time, this book imparts a valuable history lesson on just how much of Japan's economic boom was truly the result of hard work and how much was rigged. Until I read this book, I never fully appreciated the level of collusion and stunning, open-mouthed greed of Japan's ruling classes. It seems like another world, one that I can only see through this book.

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Summary: Publisher's Weekly Review of Tokyo Underworld
Review: Whiting's probe of Japan's gangsters, corrupt entrepreneurs and political fixers reads like a James Bond thriller yet manages intelligently to illuminate the underside of Japan's postwar economic boom. At the heart of his colorful tale is swaggering, thickset Nick Zappetti, a tough from East Harlem's Italian ghetto who arrived in U.S.-occupied Japan in 1945 as a 22-year old marine sergeant. Zappetti stayed on to become a black marketer, branched out into illegal banking, pimping and armed robbery, then launched a Tokyo pizza restaurant, Nicola's, which became a favorite night spot for mobsters, diplomats and movie stars. After decades of booze, debauchery, multiple marriages, gangland ties and lawsuits, he lost control of his restaruant chain to his former Japanese partner and to his Japanese fourth wife. Zappetti died in 1992, nearly bankrupt and consumed with hatred for the Japanese, whom he saw as arrogant swindlers, intent on taking over America. Whiting (You Gotta Have Wa) an American journalist who lives in Tokyo, sets Zappetti's rise and fall against juggernaut Japan's financial ascendancy over the U.S. and its current slide into economic malaise. In this critical, revealing look at half-century of U.S. Japan relations, he blames General MacArthur's occupational government--with its massive embezzlement, theft, fraud and black marketing--for creating the environment that allowed Japan's organized crime syndicates to join forces with its ruling political and business elite, aided by strategic financial aid from the CIA. Eight pages of b&w photos.