The yakuza path: better than suicide by Amy Tasukada.
Book 2 of the yakuza path.
A bag of drugs. A twisted cop. A mob on the verge of self-destruction…
An ok read. Found this slow but readable. 3*.

I was unable to read this book. It just did not click with me and is based on personal reasons. I am marking it a DNF - thank you for the opportunity. If I am able to read in the future, I will come back and edit my review. Please disregard the star rating, Netgalley makes us rate with a star even if we did not finish the book.

Great follow up to the first book. Looking forward to more from this author.

This book was still pretty good but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first one. I'm not sure if I was just in a different mood while reading this one or what but it seemed like Nao was way more whiny in this one and I found myself wanting to shake him more often than not. The mystery aspect of the plot could have been more compelling but I feel like it was inter-cut with too much internal monologue and that nothing really exciting happened until the very end. Also I would have liked Nao to get together with Aki, even if he was just going to be using him. And the whole thing with Kohta was kind of weird, I feel like that could have been left out entirely and it could have focused on Aki more and the plot wouldn't have been so convoluted. I don't know, I think what I liked most about the first one was the incredibly unhappy ending and everything ends pretty well here so I'm kind of like eh.

Nao has taken over as temporary head of the Matsukawa syndicate and is facing not only disrespect from within the gang but somebody is selling drugs within Kyoto and he is under pressure from the police to trace where they are coming from as they appear to be originating from the Matsukawa. The sequel to Blood Stained Tea is a highly enjoyable read..