The dropping of atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945 is familiar to everyone who knows anything about the Second World War. The firebombing of Tokyo on 10th March 1945 is much less well known in spite of the fact that it is regarded as the most destructive single air attack in human history and took the lives of between 100,000 and 125,000 people, mostly civilians.

David Peace’s novel, Tokyo Year Zero, the first in a trilogy, is set in Tokyo a year after the attack. It’s a city devastated and desperate, with many of its people hungry and homeless, and everyone living in the shadow of defeat and national shame. Gangs manage the black markets where essentials are available to the few who have money and influence. American soldiers control the city, while Chinese and Korean mobs fight for power. Conditions could hardly be worse, but someone is murdering young women and it’s Detective Minami’s job to find the perpetrator.

Much of the power of this novel comes from repetition, the same words and phrases used over and over again like the insistent, inescapable, and infuriating sound of a metronome. The tick, tick, tick of fear and despair that will not go away, of a restless mind that can find no peace. Turning the final page, it is the atmosphere of Tokyo Year Zero that stays with you. The heat, humidity, hunger, and hopelessness, plus the relentlessness of Minami’s quest and his determination to see things through to their conclusion, whatever terrible personal cost is exacted in the effort.

A word of advice. This is a novel whose power depends on concentrated attention. Reading a few pages and then putting it aside for a time is not the right way to approach Tokyo Year Zero. Give it sustained time and focus and it will leave a deep impression.