I think I’ve said it before on these pages, but I have to say it again: Murakami is the literary world’s answer to David Lynch. The ordinary and the extraordinary, the natural and the supernatural, are equally expected and all greeted with typical authorial nonchalance. Expect quirky characters and mysterious otherworlds; pop culture references (especially to music) and tell-tale clues casually dropped along the way. Like Lynch, Murakami makes his reader work for the story, while thoroughly entertaining. And (last comparison, I promise), he’ll never quite give you the whole answer. You’ll spend the next few days puzzling over exactly what the story meant and what particular events or conversations signified. After Dark follows the misadventures of a cast of linked characters in one Tokyo night, from 11pm to 7am. A prickly, street-smart teenage girl stays out all night to distract herself from worrying about her sister, a modern sleeping beauty. A former schoolmate practices with his band, in between a series of Tarantinoesque meandering conversations and feeding a swarm of stray cats. Also involved are the workers of a ‘love hotel’ named after an art film, a nocturnal workaholic with a savage streak and a masked character from another dimension.

Jo Case is Editor of Readings Monthly