**Nominated by the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association (SCIBA) for the T. Jefferson Parker Award for Mystery alongside Don Winslow and Alan Drew**
**Nominated for the RT Reviewers' Choice Best Book Award 2017 in the Mystery category alongside Karen White, Kelley Armstrong, Anthony Horowitz, and Margaret Mizushima**
** Nominated for The People’s Book Prize (2018) **
PRAISE
Jeffery Deaver
"Masterpiece―that’s the only way to describe Sins as Scarlet...You will love every minute spent with this one-of-a-kind hero."
A. J. Finn
"In the heady tradition of Raymond Chandler and Michael Connelly, Sins as Scarlet lays bare the bruised heart and broken soul of Los Angeles. Extraordinary stuff: a diabolically clever police procedural, a wrenching character study, and a merciless chronicle of a city in decay. I’m awestruck."
Associated Press
“Each author brings a different hue to the city or region he or she is writing about. Nicolas Obregon’s second novel is stunning.”
El Pais
"Blue Light Yokohama is a solid police procedural ... It is a novel that shadows the classics of the genre, but is also serves as an investigation into the darkness of the human soul, a story driven by a character that makes an impact, Inspector Kosuke Iwata, a cross between Deckard and the detectives of Seicho Matsumoto."
"Blue Light Yokohama goes far beyond the crime of a family murder. It is also a fantastic journey through the millions of cities beyond Tokyo, the megalopolis with its dark corners, with its crimes and its shadows."
ABC
“The narrative strength and originality of this young author makes him the most promising name in the crime fiction genre.”
Benjamin Wood (Shortlisted for Young Writer of the Year Award 2016 / CWA Gold Dagger Award 2019 / European Union Prize for Literature 2019)
"Obregón is a bright, sophisticated new voice in crime fiction: his writing sings at you, reverberates, makes you consider more than just the urgent clamour of his novel’s well-hewn murder plot. In Inspector Iwata, he has created a quiet, troubled hero whom readers will be sure to follow from one disturbing, atmospheric story to the next."
Julia Heaberlin (Author of Black-Eyed Susans)
"A twisty, highly entertaining thriller that pulls us into the heart of an unconventional hero as he fights corruption in the gritty, glittering world of Tokyo."
Simon Beckett (Author of the David Hunter series)
"With its Japanese setting and characters, Blue Light Yokohama offers up a bold and refreshingly different take on the serial killer tale."
Ragnar Jónasson (Author of the Dark Iceland series)
"Poetic, chilling and mesmerising storytelling."
NPR Radio Interview: Book Nook with Vick Mickunas
"Once in a great while I'll stumble upon a debut novel that is so freaking brilliant I'll just want to scream." ... "Blue Light Yokohama is a stunning debut. And Nic gives a great interview. It's a crime novel, a mystery, a detective novel, but it is quite a bit more than that. This is a polished piece of literature that was a delight to read. The characters will stick with you long after you finish reading about them. I'm not doing any spoilers. It is set in Japan. Listen to the interview. Read the book. Then do what I'm doing; be patient while we wait for the next one. This will be an amazing series. Remember this author's name."
The Guardian
"With a labyrinthine plot and a likeable protagonist, Blue Light Yokohama is a strong beginning to what promises to be an excellent series."
Maxim Jakubowski on Crime Time
*BOOK OF THE MONTH* “Obregón is the most atmospheric of writers and evokes local landscapes and moods with diamond-like as well as dreamy precision and the three simultaneous plots advance with clockwork-like and relentless efficiency and won’t allow the reader a moment’s respite. UNKNOWN MALE is a stunning achievement that should raise the author’s profile to crime’s Premier league or there is no justice in this world.”
*Raven Crime Reads TOP BOOK OF THE YEAR*
‘What Obregon gives us is a real smorgasbord of the good, the bad and ugly where the lines of morality and decent behaviour become fractured, and at times are difficult to discern. People acting in surprising and unpredictable ways give a real emotional heft to this book, and also work beautifully in concealing the real villains of the piece, with revenge being another incredibly strong motif.” This book encapsulated all my favourite aspects of crime thriller writing from character, to location, to plot and was an absolute joy, as the whole trilogy has been.’
Library Journal Review
"A tense, atmospheric Tokyo-set debut, which pulses with a dark energy all its own." ... "This gritty story, in what will hopefully become a new series, has roots in American noir yet fully embraces its Japanese setting, establishing Obregón as a fresh, up-and-coming voice in crime fiction." (Starred review)
The Express
"An excellent first novel." ... "This slow-burning but gripping book is based on an unsolved real-life case, but the central crime is only one of many mysteries of Japanese life the book explores, wisely avoiding the temptation to provide neat answers."
Jon Coates in The Express
"This beautifully written debut takes the reader on a captivating and atmospheric journey around Tokyo with plenty of twists to keep them gripped until the epic conclusion."
Publishers Weekly
"After a tantalizing prologue, Obregón maintains a high level of suspense throughout his superior fiction debut, an intricately constructed whodunit that doesn’t sacrifice depth of characterization for plot." ... "While the complex mystery itself will keep readers turning pages, the book’s real strength is Iwata, a compellingly tormented lead, whose demons don’t prevent him from doggedly pursuing the truth." (Starred review)
The Daily Mail
"Refreshing." ... "Let us hear more from the troubled, engaging Inspector Iwata."
The Suspense is Thrilling Me
"While it’s a slow burn, the writing is gorgeous and full bodied; I’ve never seen such horrific content described quite so beautifully." ... "Fans of noir, foreign crime fiction, and well done police procedurals should poach this. This was not the type of book you pick up to race through for sheer entertainment, but one that you savor and take in piece by piece as a learning experience. I’m pleased to say that I’m looking forward to the author’s next piece in the series and truly can’t wait to see where he takes Iwata."
Charlotte Heathcote and Jon Coates in The Daily Express
"Debut novelist Nicolás Obregón uses a shocking true-life crime, an unsolved multiple murder in Japan, as the basis for the exceptional Blue Light Yokohama."
RT Book Review - Regina Small
"Obregón’s debut is a stunning alchemy of spellbinding mystery and poignant reflection on the nature of human loneliness. His vision of Tokyo as a city mired in spiritual torpor, the economic powerhouse of the 1980s laid low not just by the financial crash of the ‘90s but by profound cultural desolation, was provoking at every turn. Kosuke Iwata's investigation of the religiously motivated Black Sun Killer brings up a host of interesting questions about community, about isolation, about love and separation; it inevitably drives Iwata to sift through the remains of his own broken life, searching for meaning, adding layers to what might otherwise be just a salacious potboiler about cult killings." ...
"An extraordinary first novel, one that seems likely to guarantee a long career. As Iwata and his partner, the steely Noriko Sakai, follow hot on the heels of the serial murderer, tracking every ritualistic killing, they must also confront the ghosts of their pasts — and the dark corruption lying deep in the heart of Tokyo."
Jake Kerridge in The Daily Express
"A novelist making serious, sensitive fiction out of a real case in which a whole family was murdered, Blue Light Yokohama is an outstanding debut based on an unsolved case in Japan."
Kirkus Reviews
"Obregón's full-bodied prose is by turns gritty and poetic, and it's consistently energetic. Given the terrific chemistry between the two lead detectives, here's hoping this debut novel kicks off a new series."
Katherine Tomlinson for Criminal Element
"Obregón has infused his first novel with a kinetic sense of the many different sides of a city he loves. Like a kaleidoscope, the view shifts from angle to angle as the inhabitants try to impose order on the chaotic infrastructure." ... "Fans of noir will delight in the tough-edged dialogue and the unsentimental characters. The puzzle is solid, and the investigation absorbing. Obregón is definitely an up-and-coming writer to watch."
Book Page - Bruce Tierney 'Black Sun Rising'
"Obregón balances the key components of modern detective fiction seamlessly." ... "His descriptions of Tokyo are spot-on as he leads the reader through the city in search of an exceptionally clever and elusive killer. Blue Light Yokohama is nicely done for a first book; it’s nicely done, period."
A Maxim Jakubowski selected title
"An impressive debut." ... "An exemplary police procedural with memorable characters, and an exotic and evocative sense of place. Striking."
The Real Book Spy
"Blue Light Yokohama is very dark, and certainly not for the faint of heart. Obregon, like his fictional detective, is a rule-breaker."
Astrid Hie-Desgranges, bookseller Fnac de Toulouse
"An excellent noir thriller with great humanity and an exciting plot in undiscovered Japan."
Michael Corbat, bookseller Espace Culturel Leclerc de Belfort
"No Zen gardens or cherry blossoms here, dive into a dark, dirty, and corrupt Tokyo! A real descent into hell sublimated by the electric writing of Nicolás Obregón! For a first novel, it's a master stroke!"
Zenda Libros
“One of the most promising debuts in Spanish crime fiction for years.”
