Piercing KINDLE MOBI by Ryu Murakami (Engl) H.A.

Piercing is the story of Kawashima Masayuki, a young man who has escaped from his murky, violence-tainted past to become a professional businessman, a devoted husband and father. However, when Masayuki begins continually waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, overcome by the hot, ferocious desire to stab his beloved infant daughter, Rie – and further compelled by the terror that, in a moment of impulsiveness, he might just do it – Masayuki decides that the only logical course of action is to blow off some steam, to exorcise his violent tendencies by taking them out on another, safer victim. To do this, he rents out a motel room and hires a young prostitute…only to find that his intended victim might be just as psychotic as he is.

Piercing is a short, tense thriller that can easily be read in a day. It cuts right to the point, with deliberate, almost mathematical precision, creating a terrifyingly real situation with realistically deranged characters. There’s no pointless blood fest here, no cheap thrills. It’s the kind of horror story that lives up to its name. You can’t really root for the characters in Piercing, you can’t laugh with them, and it’s difficult to even so much as like them…but once you’ve read the first page, it’s impossible to look away from them.