Between writing books, I'm currently editing www.japansubculture.com. I was born in Missouri and first went to Japan in 1988 as an exchange student at Sophia. I spent most of my time in college living in a Zen Buddhist temple in Tokyo, failing to obtain enlightenment or even a little, tiny satori. I became a reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest newspaper (circ. 10,000,000 daily) and was there from 1993 until close to the end of 2005, primarily as a crime reporter. I worked for a year on a human trafficking study of Japan sponsored by the US State Department from 2006-2007. Currently, I travel back and forth between Japan and the United States, writing both in English and Japanese for various publications under my own names and pen names. I do some consulting work on occasion. I'm also the temporary public relations representative for Polaris Project Japan, which combats human trafficking and other exploitation issues in Japan. I hope you enjoyed the book or at least got something out of it. If you're interested in the dark side of the sun--the problematic, interesting and strange aspects of Japanese society, please see our sporadically updated blog at www.japansubculture.com. I'm also hoping to add supplementary materials in Japanese and English that will be useful for people want to know more about crime in Japan and its other less talked about aspects.Read more about this authorRead less about this author