A Dog in Water

Until pain, memory, resignation and fury are all subsumed by the one possible conclusion, a thing or two may just be worth doing. Thus a nameless former cop who should never have become a private detective awaits clients in a dingy office across the street from a Chinese restaurant.

Impeccably paced and snappily told, even when the truth grows murky, hard-boiled has never come as smooth and pure as in this choice distillation by way of Tokyo, Japan. Warning: No dogs, cute or otherwise, appea...