The Last Yakuza. Behind the Scenes of the Japanese Mafia

In this book, you will learn:
- How an ordinary person becomes part of a criminal "family".
- What happens to those who decide to sever ties with the clan.
- Why the yakuza remain a force that even the government fears.

«"The Last Yakuza" is when our "wild 90s" decided to move to Tokyo and swap tracksuits for kimonos. Jake Adelstein takes the reader through a city where fingers are cut off more quietly than we light a cigarette, and a polite "sumimasen" may be the last thing you hear.
Here, police and mafia communicate like old buddies who can't be bothered to remember who was messing with whom the day before yesterday. But behind the bows and tea ceremonies lies a score settled in blood, and the main character is the last who remembers where the bodies and grievances are buried. The kind of true-crime story that you buy for the thriller, but then can't tear yourself away from.»

Jake Adelstein is an investigative journalist who spent over ten years at Japan's largest newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun. He became the first foreign reporter allowed to cover criminal topics in Japan and is known for his high-profile investigations into the activities of the mafia and the shadow economy of the country.
In "The Last Yakuza", Adelstein reveals the story of Makoto Saigo, a man who belonged to a criminal clan his entire life but attempted to leave it. This book will take you through the criminal world of Japan, where honor is more valuable than life, and the punishment for weakness is death. Internal wars, betrayals, bloody laws, and the hidden power of the yakuza over all of Japan—all of this is shown from the inside through the eyes of a witness.