> Skip to content
  • Published: 5 February 2019
  • ISBN: 9781405926935
  • Imprint: Michael Joseph
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $27.99

Sins As Scarlet

'In the heady tradition of Raymond Chandler and Michael Connelly' A. J. Finn, bestselling author of The Woman in the Window




While investigating a brutal murder of a transgender woman in LA, Inspector Iwata discovers a world of corruption and murder centred around the exploitation of Mexican immigrants

Former homicide detective Kosuke Iwata is on the run from his past . . .
Five years ago, he lost his family. Now he may have found his redemption.

Living in LA and working as a private detective, he spends his days spying on unfaithful spouses and his nights with an unavailable woman.

Still he cannot forget the family he lost in Tokyo.

But that all changes when a figure from his old life appears at his door demanding his help.

Meredith Nichol, a transgender woman and his wife's sister, has been found strangled on the lonely train tracks behind Skid Row.

Soon he discovers that the devil is at play in the City of Angels and Meredith's death wasn't the hate crime the police believe it to be. Iwata knows that risking his life and future is the only way to silence the demons of his past.

Reluctantly throwing himself back in to the dangerous existence he only just escaped, Iwata discovers a seedy world of corruption, exploitation and murder - and a river of sin flowing through LA's underbelly, Mexico's dusty borderlands and deep within his own past.

  • Published: 5 February 2019
  • ISBN: 9781405926935
  • Imprint: Michael Joseph
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $27.99

About the author

Nicolas Obregon

British born of a Spanish father and a French mother, Nicolás Obregón grew up between London and Madrid. As a travel writer, Nicolás has had an extensive experience of Japan, but the beginning of his fascination with the country came from watching Japanese cartoons as a young boy. The inspiration for Blue Light Yokohama is easy to mark. During his first trip to Japan, Nicolás came across an article about a real-life crime which was to haunt him. Sixteen years after this atrocity, the case remains unsolved. Nicolás Obregón is a graduate of the acclaimed Birkbeck Creative Writing Masters course and a former bookseller for Waterstones.

Also by Nicolas Obregon

See all

Praise for Sins As Scarlet

Masterpiece - that's the only way to describe Sins as Scarlet. Obregón's brilliant novel is, at once, a classic noir, a psychological thriller and a riveting examination-sometimes dark, sometime moving to the point of tears--of life in a less-than-angelic Los Angeles

JEFFERY DEAVER

A dark, brutal ride through the underbelly of LA

ANTHONY HOROWITZ

In the heady tradition of Raymond Chandler and Michael Connelly, Sins as Scarlet lays bare the bruised heart and broken soul of Los Angeles. Extraordinary stuff: a diabolically clever police procedural, a wrenching character study, and a merciless chronicle of a city in decay. I'm awestruck.

A. J. Finn, author of international bestseller, THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW

Evocative, perceptive writing

Sunday Time Crime Club

Sins as Scarlet is a searing LA crime story, as poetic as it is brutal, as tender as it is disturbing

Tim Weaver

Fresh and convincing . . . the dialogue is worthy of the great chronicler of LA's dark side, Raymond Chandler. But really, Obregon's writing has a unique flavour all of its own, wherever his books are set

Jake Kerridge, Sunday Express

Harrowing and gripping. An astute police procedural . . . Switching between LA, Mexico and Tokyo both Iwata's present and past are cleverly interwoven in a truly heart-rending climax

Daily Express

Thanks to the excellent Iwata, you get a gripping mystery with a real conscience

Sunday Sport

This bleak, richly descriptive and haunting thriller walks of the wild side of Los Angeles

Peterborough Telegraph

A brace of cutting-edge themes are threaded into the abrasive narrative . . . It is a combustible mix, but as in the earlier Blue Light Yokohama, the author has the full measure of his difficult material. With his vividly evoked Mexican and LA settings [he] delivers a pacey, page-turning thriller, but the underlying seriousness gives real texture. Iwata is a richly drawn, conflicted hero, and this is another savage journey into the dark heart of America

Barry Forshaw, Financial Times

Obregón keeps the unpredictable plot of Sins As Scarlet churning with myriad surprises that are grounded in believability

Mail Online

Praise for Blue Light Yokohama

-

A twisty, highly entertaining thriller that pulls us into the heart of an unconventional hero as he fights corruption in the gritty, glittering world of Tokyo

Julia Heaberlin, author of, Sunday Times bestseller, Black-Eyed Susans

An outstanding debut

The most awaited books of 2017, Sunday Express

Refreshing. Engaging

Daily Mail

Taut and atmospheric with twists galore

Woman & Home