Lucie Blackmantall, blond, twenty-one years oldstepped out into the vastness of Tokyo in the summer of 2000, and disappeared forever. The following winter, her dismembered remains were found buried in a seaside cave.
Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, covered Lucies disappearance and followed the massive search for her, the long investigation, and the even longer trial. Over ten years, he earned the trust of her family and friends, won unique access to the Japanese detectives and Japans byzantine legal system, and delved deep into the mind of the man accused of the crime, Joji Obara, described by the judge as unprecedented and extremely evil.
The result is a book at once thrilling and revelatory, In Cold Bloodfor our times (Chris Cleave, author ofIncendiaryandLittle Bee).
People Who Eat Darknessis one ofPublishers Weeklys Top 10 Books of 2012
Richard Lloyd Parryis the Asia editor and Tokyo bureau chief of
The Times(London) and the author of
In the Time of Madness.
Richard Lloyd Parry's remarkable examination of [this] crime, what it revealed about Japanese society and how it unsettled conventional notions of bereavement, elevates his book above the genre.People Who Eat Darknessis a searing exploration of evil and trauma, and how both ultimately elude understanding or resolution . . . Just as the grief of Blackman's parents is unassaugeable, Obara and his motives are unknowable. That is the darkness at the heart of this book, one Lloyd Parry conveys with extraordinary effect and emotion . . .People Who Eat Darknessis a fascinating mediation that does not pretend to offer pat answers to obscene mysteries. Susan Chira, The New York Times Book Review
Americans have an advantage in readingPeople Who Eat Darkness: we are less likely to know about Lucie Blackman. The blond Brit was 21 when she disappeared in Japlă&
![People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyoand the Evil That Swallowed Her Up [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/7/5/1/2_5450349.jpg "People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyoand the Evil That Swallowed Her Up [Paperback]")