NINTH STEP STATION – Episode 4: The Blackout Killer by Jacqueline Koyanagi

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Ninth Step Station by Malka Older, Fran Wilde, Curtis C. Chen, Jacqueline Koyanagi
Published by Serial Box on January 9 2019
Genres: Adult, Science fiction
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher

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A few notes about how I’m going to review this series. There are eleven episodes, and my plan is to put a review up each Wednesday as they become available. I’ve never done this before, so let’s see how it goes! Also, I won’t be giving star ratings to the individual episodes, but I will rate the series overall when I’m finished.

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About Ninth Step Station:

A local cop. A US Peacekeeper. A divided Tokyo.

Years of disaster and conflict have left Tokyo split between great powers.

In the city of drone-enforced borders, bodymod black markets, and desperate resistance movements, US peacekeeper Emma Higashi is assigned to partner with Tokyo Metropolitan Police Detective Miyako Koreda.

Together, they must race to solve a series of murders that test their relationship and threaten to overturn the balance of global power. And amid the chaos, they each need to decide what they are willing to do for peace.

Episode 1: The Faceless Body

Episode 2: The Bodiless Arm

Episode 3: The Fallen Executive

Another episode, another murder for our main characters Miyako and Emma to solve. This week, a violent murder takes place during one of the city’s many blackouts. A woman’s body is found in the river, but the cause of death isn’t drowning. When another body is discovered the next day, draped over a bathtub full of water, Miyako and Emma realize they may have a serial killer on their hands. Two other unsolved murders that both happened during blackouts, and also involved a body of water, may lead them to the killer.

This was a very contained episode from author Jacqueline Koyanagi, and by that I mean that the primary focus was on the murders and not on the lives and interactions of the characters. And I’m not complaining, I actually enjoyed this tight focus and thought the pacing was excellent. The way the women solve the murder almost felt like a throwback to old black-and-white mysteries from the 50s and 60s. Despite the future technology of this world, and the ever present data sleeves that allow people to access all sorts of information with the touch of a finger, this futuristic Tokyo is still suffering the effects of a terrible earthquake that destroyed much of the information that the police force relied on—facial recognition programs, fingerprint databases, etc—so Emma and Miyako must use their wits to figure things out. Lucky for us, they’re very smart!

But there are still some interesting human moments that give us just a smidge more character development. There’s a brief scene where Emma is moving into her new apartment, and Kensuke comes over to help her. You may remember that Emma is a bit smitten with Kensuke, who is trying his hardest to win her over. I loved this scene because it emphasizes how awkward Emma still feels around him, despite the way he turns on the charm whenever they’re together. I still don’t trust the guy, and he’s got some awfully outdated concepts of a woman’s place in society, so we’ll just have to wait and see how their relationship unfolds.

I also enjoyed a very sweet moment between Emma and Miyako. Miyako brings Emma a small gift, which completely surprises her. Up until now, the two have been doing their best to get along, but it’s moments like this that show their relationship is starting to change. I’m not sure what the authors have in store for them later in the series, but I’m hoping they continue to trust each other more.

Koyanagi adds more of the Japanese touches that I love. In this episode, the characters attend a hanami (the traditional Japanese custom of viewing cherry blossoms), which brought back memories of my own time in Japan and the crazy, drunken hanamis I attended! (Seriously, those were the good old days.) I also love that all four authors imbue their stories with Japanese customs like bowing when you greet another person, or being respectful while interrogating suspects.

But these episodes are short (as they are meant to be), and when I finished The Blackout Killer, I wanted to keep going. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure when I started this experiment how I would like reading and reviewing one episode a week, but so far I’m having a blast.

Check back next Wednesday for a review of Episode 5: The Deadly Defection by Malka Older.

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Are you intrigued? You can purchase the entire series for $13.99! Click here now to learn more.

About Serial Box:

Serial Box brings everything that’s awesome about TV (easily digestible episodes, team written, new content every week) to what was already cool about books (well-crafted stories, talented authors, enjoyable anywhere).

Like TV, we release a new episode of our serials every week and serials typically run for seasons of 10-16 weeks. Easy to pick up, episodes are enjoyable on their own but build over the course of the season to tell a bigger story. Each episode is available in ebook and audio and takes about 40 minutes to enjoy.