Book Review: Asshole Yakuza Boyfriend

In Nick Feldman’s novel Asshole Yakuza Boyfriend, private investigator Mina Davis is searching for a missing girl, Rose Scott, and she won’t let a bleeding-out Yakuza thug stop her from doing the job she was hired to do.

This is how Mina meets Shiro, a Yakuza member who just happens to have been shot by the man responsible for the girl’s disappearance. Mina ends up hip-deep in crime syndicate drama as she tries to track down and rescue Rose before it’s too late.

I found Mina to be a very relatable character, much more real than some other PIs I’ve read. She’s rude, crude, and even a little lewd at times. She has several redeeming qualities, though, even if she won’t admit it to herself. Mina, though claiming to be all about the payday, truly cares about Rose’s safety. She also cares about Shiro, who–while not exactly a nice guy–isn’t exactly as much of an asshole as the title makes him out to be. He’s got that Yakuza honor thing going for him, but Mina doesn’t see it that way. She sees a jerk who’s a means to an end; he sees a jaded PI who’s worth more than either of them would care to admit.

All in all, the book was quite well-written and thought out, with only a few recurring punctuation errors…certainly not enough for even this member of the Grammar Police to stop reading.

Though this is not the only book about Mina, it was written well enough that I didn’t feel like I’d missed out on a lot by not reading the other. On the contrary, I now want to read the first book, Hungover and Handcuffed, where Mina makes her debut in three short stories that sound to be as action-packed as Asshole Yakuza Boyfriend.