Crime story set against backdrop of March 11 disaster

Arts & Culture Jul. 03, 2012 - 04:19AM JST ( 2 )

CHIBA —

In the publishing business, good stories are where you find them. Sometimes they come from unlikely or even unknown sources. Recently, Abiko Free Press co-founder and editor Our Man in Abiko received via email a most extraordinary unsolicited manuscript, which tells the story of a young Japanese-British woman’s difficult and deadly quest to help an American father find his missing daughter in Japan.

The events in the manuscript, titled “Hana Walker’s Half Life 2:46,” take place during and just after the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. Hana Walker, an orphaned half-Japanese half-English ramen shop waitress, is hired by an American named Blackmore to help him get his 14-year-old daughter back from his estranged Japanese wife. As Hana and the American undertake the search for the daughter, Hana enlists the help of a trusted but unconventional Shinto priest and runs afoul of both the police and the deadly yakuza. And during the course of their search, Hana and Blackmore live through the March 11 earthquake and witness first-hand the resulting death and destruction in Ishinomaki.

“Hana Walker’s Half Life 2:46” is a timely and gripping crime adventure. However, whether Walker’s manuscript is complete fiction, or is based fully or in part on actual events, the Abiko Free Press staff cannot confidently confirm nor deny. They simply just don’t know.

“Hana Walker’s Half Life 2:46” is available as a $3.99 Kindle edition on Amazon.com.